GEBG Summits

2024 Global Summit on Climate Education

February 7-8, 2024 // San Francisco, CA

Join us for an exploration of education in the era of climate change, as schools seek to develop and empower students as active and engaged global citizens. Hosted at Drew School in San Francisco, CA in partnership with the Klingenstein Center at Teachers College, Columbia University

As the impact of climate change continues to be felt across the world, students and educators are increasingly looking for ways in which they can respond. Research on youth climate anxiety highlights the challenge it presents for young people but also identifies the power of climate action as its antidote. Join us for an exploration of education in the era of climate change, as schools seek to develop and empower students as active and engaged global citizens, in the classroom and beyond.

What are schools, leaders, educators, students, and community partners doing in response to climate change? How are schools rethinking traditional models to center engaged and active student learning for today’s world? Examples of innovation in the area of teaching climate action are emerging in significant ways, and this summit will provide the opportunity for educators to learn about trends, models, and tools that can directly impact their work in schools.

Educators in a variety of positions, from across grade levels and disciplines, will share how they intentionally embed student action in their learning design, and participants in this summit will learn from these case studies as well as emerging research in the field of climate education. Schools will leave with new ideas and resources on how to engage students in a myriad of ways from civic and political engagement to partnering with local artists, immersive learning experiences, and school-wide sustainability programs. Participants will also be able to connect and collaborate with each other as they consider future opportunities for their schools.

Organized by the Global Education Benchmark Group (GEBG) in partnership with the Klingenstein Center and hosted at Drew School, this summit will provide school leaders and educators the opportunity to build community, to share and collaborate, and to learn from scholars and leaders in the field of climate education.

General Schedule

Friday, February 7, 2025, 9:00am – 4:00pm

Global Summit on Climate Education
Hosted at Drew School, San Francisco, CA, USA

Saturday, February 8, 9:00am – 12:00pm

Global Summit on Climate Education
Hosted at Drew School, San Francisco, CA, USA

Registration

Member School and Teacher’s College Student Discount $350 USD per person / Non Member School $395 USD per person
Friday and Saturday breakfasts, Friday lunch, refreshments and reception included in the registration fee

Registration opens September 18th, 2024

Call for Proposals

Through this Call for Proposals, we are seeking educators interested in sharing innovative models of teaching and learning in the era of climate change. As schools increasingly engage their students in a myriad of ways from civic and political engagement to partnering with local artists or cutting edge science research, we seek educators willing to share their own learning journeys and examples in a community of educators committed to education as an essential component of addressing the global challenge of climate change.

+ Do you have examples of programs, courses, curriculum units, or whole school initiatives that intentionally embed student learning or action on climate issues in the learning design?
+ Have you created immersive or experiential learning experiences that engage students in climate issues?
+ Are you articulating the knowledge, skills, and dispositions you want your students to develop to support their local action on this pressing global issue?+ + Are you building new partnerships and collaborations?
+ Are you discussing and responding to student climate anxiety or apathy?
+ Are you teaching systems or futures thinking in the context of supporting our students to imagine multiple possible futures?
+ Are you providing meaningful professional learning and support for your faculty across the curriculum?
+ Are you bringing whole school initiatives to life across campus and partnering with multiple stakeholders?

We welcome proposals from classroom teachers, program administrators, and any other members of school communities. With the objective that presentations directly resonate with the event’s primary audience of school-based educators, proposals that include at least one presenter currently working in a school will be given priority. Please submit your proposal through the form below.

The deadline to submit proposals is Monday, October 21, 2024.

PREVIOUS SUMMITS

Global Summit: Climate Education

January 2024 // New York, NY

This summit provided participants with the opportunity to engage in expert and practitioner-led sessions in program design and curriculum, student travel learning competencies and outcomes, emerging risks, collaborative travel models, partnership development, ethical considerations of travel, in addition to vetting Spanish-language and travel-program providers, connecting with existing and potential partner schools, and to participating in discussions and cultural activities.

Featured speakers included Karenna Gore is the founder and executive director of the Center for Earth Ethics and Luca Martinez is a nature and wildlife photographer and videographer.

Global Summit: Reimagining Travel Programs

November, 2022 // Buitrago, Spain

This summit provided participants with the opportunity to engage in expert and practitioner-led sessions in program design and curriculum, student travel learning competencies and outcomes, emerging risks, collaborative travel models, partnership development, ethical considerations of travel, in addition to vetting Spanish-language and travel-program providers, connecting with existing and potential partner schools, and to participating in discussions and cultural activities.

Reimagining Travel Programs

October 2021 // Online

Travel can be one of the most effective and powerful ways to teach global competencies, yet even as travel restrictions are lifted and interest surges, many difficult questions remained:

Should we travel with students? If we do, what will be different?
How might we reimagine programs while still developing their clear student learning outcomes?
What partnerships within your school could support new virtual, local, domestic, and international programming?
How can we effectively manage diverse and potentially conflicting needs from various stakeholders, including parents?
How might we reasonably manage risks associated with off-campus programming?
Which planning strategies can help us to navigate uncertainty and evolving risks, in addition to our own stress?

Global STEM and Sustainability

June 2021, Online

This Summit provided participants with the opportunity to learn about innovative work being done in the field at their own pace and in accordance with their own schedules.

Teaching Global Writers

February, 2021, Online

This Summit featured dialogue, interactive sessions, and workshops on bringing more global voices and perspectives into the curriculum and empowering the voices of our students through writing. Highlights included:

Keynote address from author Naomi Shihab Nye
An educator panel on decolonizing the curriculum

Designing and Assessing Intercultural Learning

February, 2020, Chicago, USA

This Summit was an in-depth look at evolving research, engaging questions, and exemplary school models around developing and implementing global curricula in our schools.

Effective Partnerships for Global Education

November, 2019, Madrid, Spain

This Summit explored how best to build, grow and sustain effective cross-cultural partnerships through a series of discussions, speakers, and panels of educators as well as opportunities to network and build new partnerships.