Our Program

Madison Metropolitan School District Partnership

Sustain Dane has partnered with the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) and Edgewood College to help MMSD explore what sustainability means to them and how they can better integrate sustainable practices into all that they do. In February 2010, MMSD launched a committee to oversee this work with a plan to first understand their current sustainable practices, then identify where they want to go – a vision of sustainability – and, lastly, the steps they need to take to achieve that vision. Sustain Dane is helping to move forward this work by bringing process and content expertise to this effort.

GROW Coalition

GROW (GrassRoots/OutdoorWonder) Coalition is a new effort organized by Sustain Dane and Health Forward Consulting in partnership with Community GroundWorks and the University of Wisconsin-Extension.  The Coalition is a collective of organizations and individuals who promote outdoor learning in and around Madison, Wisconsin.  There is a growing body of evidence showing that outdoor learning quantifiably improves students’ achievement in school, as well as greatly adding to self-esteem, sense of responsibility, and cooperation with peers.  For example, a recent report from the National Wildlife Federation shows that outdoor teaching opportunities are a promising way to increase school engagement and test scores, especially among low-achieving students.  By creating a network of resources and a singular voice for advocacy, the GROW Coalition here in Madison will support - and grow - outdoor learning opportunities in our community.

Badger Rock Middle School

This south Madison neighborhood school will put cultural relevance, sustainable agriculture and environmental impact at the forefront of learning. Sustain Dane is collaborating with the Center for Resilient Cities and Growing Power to create a flagship environmental charter school that will teach students about the impact of food systems and the relevance of ethnic cultural trends.

These children will plant crops and cook what they harvest. They’ll also reach out into the surrounding community to better understand diversity. We are setting this project at the forefront of sustainable education to create a model that will inspire and educate districts nationwide.

The school is part of a larger project called the Resilience Research Center an integrated campus that places food and community connections at its heart. The campus will also include a community center and urban agriculture research center.

Partnership with Wisconsin Center for Environmental Education

Sustain Dane is working with the Wisconsin Center for Environmental Education and the Department of Public Instruction to better understand what “education for sustainability” means in Wisconsin and what teachers, schools and districts need to “educate for sustainability.” As part of this work Sustain Dane will be hosting community visioning sessions to help build a shared vision for education for sustainability in our state and to garner input on what students should know, think and do to be sustainability literate.

MMSD School Food Committee

Children need good food. Plain and simple. But not every child can access it. One of the primary goals of our work with MMSD is to make sure all children in our district can. We are working with MMSD, REAP Food Group and other community partners in developing a food service program that uses sustainable practices as an educational tool. Our aim is to minimize the use of industrially manufactured food by incorporating ingredients from local farms and school gardens, to introduce food that represents the ethnic diversity of our district’s communities. Our goal is to help our children develop the values and practices of healthy eating and to better understand the positive societal impact of sustainable food systems.