A meeting with a positive result . . .

I just got home from a meeting in Seattle. The traffic was bad and the ground is white meaning it will be a restless evening for me wondering what it will look like at about 4:40 am. Oh well, another chance to make the school closure call. What an opportunity!

The meeting I attended was organized by e3 Washington an organization I have introduced in an earlier post. They are providing leadership in our state to bring business and education together around sustainability. Also at the meeting were representatives from Boeing, Costco, and multiple foundations interested in supporting e3’s goals. Peter Senge, author of The Necessary Revolution and numerous other books on systems thinking and dynamics was also present. He serves as a representative of the SOL partnership looking to match innovators in sustainability education with innovators from business on a national level. For me, these are always energizing opportunities to share our work and to play a small role in an important initiative.

One of the highlights of the meeting for me was Peter confirming his desire to engage with students and teachers from our high school using his book as a point of departure for the conversations. He is excited about the opportunity to support their learning and to learn from them. The second highlight resulted when I shared an e-mail from Brett Thompson a high school teacher and part of the writing team for the grade 11 American Studies sustainability unit. In the e-mail, Brett shared a summary of the unit and I asked for partners to share authentic work in the field and to support the learning of our young people. The Costco representative came up to me after the meeting and asked to be a part of the work. Costco is doing much work around the world with food chains and sustainability. She shared examples that will make wonderful authentic learning experiences for our students.

The one thing that still gives me dissonance is listening to the Boeing representatives share their experiences with system thinking and dynamics that is having significant influence on changes the company is making to not only the products they produce, but on their impacts on the environment. I need to learn more about this because I believe this focus on system thinking and dynamics is one that we need to embed in our work with young people.