sustainability

Each year the global community comes together to increase awareness for the planet we live on and to learn about environmental crises ranging from pollution to climate change to endangered species. April 22, 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, which...

This take-home worksheet can be shared after school field trip programs, gallery activities, afterschool programs, and other educational programming. It serves as a way to connect participant engagement and learning to individual actions that support the United Nation’s Sustainable Development...

This online workshop will share successful approaches for engaging museum guests in learning about sustainability. Presenters will introduce key concepts related to sustainability and share ways that NISE Network partners are integrating sustainability into exhibits, programs, and other public-facing museum...

In this guided conversation, teens will use a set of issue and character cards to consider the importance of women’s rights to sustainability. They learn that creating an equitable society with equal rights and access to opportunities for all will have...

This online workshop will help your organization "walk the walk" when it comes to sustainability. Presenters will share specific steps museums can take, from integrating sustainability into their policy and governance to greening their facilities and operations. Participants will learn...

This workshop is part of a three part series on Sustainability in Museums. During this online workshop, project team members from the Sustainability in Science and Technology Museums program provided an overview of sustainability, its relevance to museums, and highlighted examples of sustainability...

This museum field trip program for grades 4 and 5 explores the idea that humans can engineer positive changes to our environment through sustainable behaviors and ecologically informed decision-making. Ecosystem engineers are organisms that make significant changes to their environment...

This discussion-based activity encourages participants to imagine their community 80 years into the future using the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Participants will learn about current sustainability initiatives within their community from a local subject matter expert and then...

In this activity, children and adults work together to explore their relationship with technology and examine ways to make sustainable media consumption choices. 

Participants watch a short clip of a cartoon, then try a creative challenge to turn time spent...

Promotional logos, colors, and specs for Sustainable Futures programs - two sets of logos one more suitable for public-facing programs and audiences and one designed for professional audiences.

The Survival game show is a public program that's all about working together to create a better future. It introduces the idea that a sustainable future involves meeting the social, environmental and economic needs of all people without damaging the...

Games for the Future is a set of activities designed to engage participants in futures thinking and learning about the UN’s Global Goals for sustainable development. The games include:

• Cards for Humanity, where players brainstorm ways that members of their...

A collection of public programs exploring sustainable futures.  

Each program in the collection includes a complete set of digital resources, including instructions for preparing the program supplies, printing your own graphics to use with the public, and training material for...

Sustainability means healthy people, communities, and environments, now and in the future. The NISE Network has created a variety of professional development resources for museums and similar cultural organizations. 

PLANNING TOOLS

• What is Sustainability? Overview of sustainability for museums and...

This article was originally published in the March/April 2019 issue of Dimensions magazine, the bimonthly publication of the Association of Science-Technology Centers. The NISE Network is a national community of informal educators and scientists dedicated to supporting STEM learning across...

Learn how your organization can be part of a larger movement to change public discourse about climate change to be positive, productive, and solutions-focused! Meet members of the National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation (NNOCCI), which...

The SustainABLE online kit contains digital copies of everything you you'll need to host your own Sustainability in Science Museums event. Kit contents include planning, marketing and orientation materials, printable banners and poster, and background materials, activity guides and facilitator...

This hands-on SustainABLE activity is meant to promote conversation about how water is distributed and used, and how we can work together to conserve this limited resource. In different parts of the country, guests may be familiar with different issues...

This sustainability activity is meant to promote conversation about how systems work, and how we can work together to better understand systems and work toward creating a more sustainable future. Players will actively move around the activity space, figuring out...

In My Community, museum visitors can draw their neighborhoods and talk about what they like best or least about the places they live. They can check out the Changing Communities, and think of ways these spaces could be improved to...

What can you do today to help create a more sustainable world tomorrow? Visitors to High Five for the Future can write or draw their idea for a sustainable future, and take a photo of themselves high-fiving the future kid...

The Future Builder sustainability activity challenges visitors to build a tower representing a future community. Each card presents the players with a new part of their community to build—a school, park, gas station, museum, or something else—each with its own...

The Creative Reinvention sustainability activity shows visitors how common waste materials can be recycled, reused, and reinvented into brand new products—a process called the "*circular economy*." Activity cards ask visitors to guess what recycled materials were used to make various...

These files contain a printable banner and posters for your sustainability event. The simple, colorful posters present the principles and challenges of sustainability.