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2021-22 Sustainability Challenge: A Curriculum for the Climate Crisis

Your gift in support of creating a climate change curriculum and sustainability plan for the school will be matched by the E.E. Ford Foundation. 

Thank you for considering a gift to help Harley reach the $100,000 goal by June 30, 2022.

Check out our presentation, “Harley Sustainability Challenge: Creating a Curriculum for the Climate Crisis” HERE. (password: Ia&B364k)

The project includes: 

  • Endowed fund to support sustainability action items for future years, including student projects.
  • Professional Development and conference expenses for a summer institute to develop curriculum and then in the future share with teachers beyond Harley.
  • Technology Makerspace renovation to support expanded climate solution models and prototypes. Also improved technology for storytelling and communication purposes.
  • Materials Learning materials to span the curriculum—Global warming & solar cell kits, CO2 detectors, scripts, environmental literature, lesson development and materials for multiple courses in almost every discipline.
  • Staffing Half of a faculty member’s salary for two years, professional development opportunities for that teacher, travel expenses for attendance at conferences, a consultant on the curricular side, and a consultant for work with the sustainability committee.

Meet Dr. Vinton:

Betsy Vinton, PhD—a nationally-recognized climate change educator and 20-year leader of the Harley faculty—is our academic point person for the development of Harley’s new Climate Change Curriculum. Betsy is spending half of her teaching time this year and next working with Upper School colleagues to re-engineer parts of their curricula to form that program. Our plan is to develop the new curriculum and then disseminate it to help other schools replicate the program.

The Harley School

1981 Clover Street
Rochester, NY 14618
(585) 442-1770

©2023 The Harley School

Our Upper School is filled with formal and informal opportunities for students to take on leadership roles. Whether following passions or learning new skills, student-driven opportunities take many shapes. 

  • Independent study: one trimester, full year, and multi-year projects have included automating our solar chimneys, coding handmade musical instruments, or developing a class on financial literacy for underserved high school students.
  • Serving on student council: 
  • STEM: Climate curriculum program, biomimicry program, NASA Hunch program

At Harley, our students learn how to evaluate social systems in order to identify complex problems in society through a lens of social justice. They take a hands-on approach to working for a fair, equitable society by researching, exploring and evaluating different perspectives, and offering solutions—both theoretical and practical.

Our faculty integrate social justice into our broader curriculum to assist students in gaining a foundational knowledge about what makes a democracy function. By gaining skills in ideating supportive pathways they become more exposed and experienced to how communities can undergo healing and restorative actions.

Students may create independent studies with supervising teachers throughout their Upper School experience or, during Grade 12, they can design Capstone projects—intensive collaborations with Harley faculty and off-campus mentors—involving rigorous academic study and culminating in public presentations. They are empowered to create their own curriculum, set goals, and work on time management skills in order to accomplish their objectives.

Independent Studies run the gamut from The Psychology of Sports to Furniture Design to The Neuroimaging of Alzheimer’s Disease. Capstones, meanwhile, are as diverse as the students who pursue them: Fictional Rochester, Autobiographical Art, Biomimicry Education, Organic Fuel, and Rochester Refugees. 

Indicative of Upper School curiosity and creativity, pursuits such as these distinguish our graduates in college. Through deep dives of this sort, Harley students master more than speaking, writing, and computing: they learn to communicate, advocate, collaborate, organize, listen, and empathize. 

About

Academics

Key Programming

Enrollment

Letter from the Head of School

Letter from the Editor

Features

Central Work that Matters: DEI

Harley Black Alumni Network

Climate Crisis Curriculum

Citizen Scientists

Joy Moss: Storytelling Roots

In Every Issue

Class Notes

Diane Donniger Award

By the Numbers

From the Archives

What’s (Who’s) New at Harley

Divisional Highlights

Alumni Profile: Vandebroek

Alumni Profiles: Keller

HAC Athletics

2021 Lives of Great Purpose Awards

1000 Words

Commencement 2022

Reunion 2022

In Memoriam

Retirements and Fond Farewells

Letter from the Head of School

Letter from the Editor

Features

Central Work that Matters

Affinity Group Forms

Climate Crisis Curriculum

Citizen Scientists

Joy Moss: Storytelling Roots

In Every Issue

Class Notes

Diane Donniger Award

By the Numbers

From the Archives

What’s (Who’s) New at Harley

Divisional Highlights

Alumni Profile: Vandebroek

Alumni Profiles: Keller

HAC Athletics

2021 Lives of Great Purpose Awards

1000 Words

Commencement 2022

Reunion 2022

In Memoriam

Retirements and Fond Farewells