The Center for Ecoliteracy (CEL) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to education for sustainable living.
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Located in Berkeley, California, the Center for Ecoliteracy's stated mission is to support schooling for sustainability.[1]
It was founded in 1995 by philanthropist Peter Buckley, physicist/author Fritjof Capra, and think tank director Zenobia Barlow to apply ecological, systems thinking principles to K-12 education.[2] Its origins arose from a shared belief in the importance of promoting systemic leadership and change in the context of whole schools, honoring the wisdom of indigenous people, and nurturing a reverence for all life.[3]
The Center for Ecoliteracy has supported projects in habitat restoration, school gardens and cooking classes, partnerships between farms and schools, school food transformation, and curricular innovation.[4] Together with the Chez Panisse Foundation and Berkeley Unified School District, the Center for Ecoliteracy implemented the School Lunch Initiative to provide local, seasonal, and sustainable meals for students as well as experiential learning in gardens, kitchen classrooms, and cafeterias.[5] Using a systems approach, the Rethinking School Lunch program offers a planning strategy for revamping food service programs.[6]
The Center for Ecoliteracy’s latest initiative, Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability, aims to provide a framework based on four guiding principles: “Nature is Our Teacher,” “Sustainability is a Community Practice,” “The Real World is the Optimal Learning Environment,” and “Sustainable Living is Rooted in a Deep Knowledge of Place.”[7] It identifies four potential pathways to schooling for sustainability—food, campus, community, and teaching and learning.[8]