Schools as Ecosystems

open seriesLast added September 2025

Before I started an entire blog on the concept, I had the seed of an idea: growing healthy food is akin to supporting the learning of children. From there I blogged for nearly a decade, some of it in collaboration with a fellow NYC Teaching Fellow, Will Johnson, riffing on the metaphor of a school as an ecosystem.

Editor’s note — Restored to the original 2011 sequence. Parts III and IV, both Open Source pieces, and “Curriculum” were never migrated to this blog; the post long published here as “Part III” is in fact Part V, and keeps its original URL. The Influence of Acoustics, Greenery and Air Quality were written as chapters of a book that was never finished, and posted here instead.

2010Growing Healthy Food and Children
2011Public Schools as Ecosystems: Part I
2011Public Schools as Ecosystems: Part II
2011Open Source as it Applies to Public Education
2011Public Schools as Ecosystems: Part III: Open Source Curriculum
2011Open Source as it Applies to Education: Part II
2011Public Schools as Ecosystems: Part IV
2011Public Schools as Ecosystems: Part V
2011Curriculum
2020What will it take to improve the conditions for learning in our schools?
2020The Influence of Acoustics on Learning
2020The Influence of Greenery on Learning
2020The Influence of Air Quality on Health and Learning
2025More Productive Than an Hour of Instruction?

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