SPECIAL PREVIEW: Read this extract from the upcoming issue of YES!

Summer Greetings,

I hope this time of year allows you to breathe deeply and take in all that summer offers in the way of replenishment and renewal. I’ve just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver’s latest book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life and I highly recommend it!

Below you’ll find additional resources and readings on food and sustainability that I hope feed your soul and inspire creative thinking about your teaching and learning.

And take a look—and listen—to our stories from you about your efforts to connect and inspire students.


Kay Hubbard
Education Outreach Manager, YES! Magazine

P.S.  Is your free one-year teacher’s subscription expired? Renew! Put “TAL” in the code box for a special rate.

Here are two stories about teachers tackling big issues like immigration and sustainability using creative and student-led approaches.

Immigration through the lens of Sixth Grade Girls
Listen in on a three minute Northwest Public Radio interview about what happens when a creative Seattle teacher helps her students broaden their understanding of immigration by connecting them with girls their age in rural, Hispanic, Eastern Washington.  

  AUDIO   Listen to the interview



Voyager students say Yes! to Earth Charter
A small strawberry patch, nestled below pine trees on Bainbridge Island, Washington, embodies a story of collaboration, community, and hope for a better world. The strawberries are planted on the cozy grounds of Voyager Montessori Elementary School, just up the road from YES! Magazine. Teachers at Voyager were inspired by a YES! workshop on the Earth Charter to develop year long school curriculum that would empower their students take action for sustainability and social justice.   More >>

Please send us your stories of innovative, inspiring teaching and we’ll post them online.

As you know, dramatic change is happening across Latin America. The current issue of YES!, Latin America Leaps Ahead, tells the stories of how Latin Americans are replacing neoliberalism with democracy and justice. Here are two useful resources for the classroom.

U.S. Influence Waning
5 Ways the role of the U.S. has been turned upside down.  Latin Americans are uniting and challenging American influence in their countries.  

8 Hotspots of Progress
Building democracy in politics and workplaces, collaborating across borders and fighting poverty.
Latin Americans are turning their continent around.

Find out more about teaching on food and sustainability from these curriculum resources, YES! articles, and links to great resources. The YES! Earth Charter Curriculum Module combines lesson plans and activities with inspiring YES! stories of people and communities that are thriving by choosing to live with compassion and respect for all people and the planet.

YES! Earth Charter Curriculum Module
Looking for a way to help your students explore the values that will lead to a more just, sustainable and peaceful world? Take a look at the YES! Earth Charter Curriculum Module for valuable lesson plans and teaching tools for your classroom teaching.



Declare Independence: Go Local
More and more young people are concerned about the corporate economy. Help them see that there are alternatives—like eating local food and supporting small businesses—that contribute to a more just and sustainable world. Discover how we can bring our economy home.



Hog Heaven
Help your students discover what straw bedding has to do with healthy hogs and a sustainable food system. Midwestern farmers' “hoop houses” are cheaper to build and maintain than toxic factory farms, and they create dramatically less waste.


Related Resources

Facing the Future: People and the Planet
A valuable source for curriculum materials and activities for K-12 classrooms on vital issues like poverty, sustainability, environment, and population. Free resources like class sets and teacher’s guides are available online.


Edible School Yard
Learn how a school has transformed an asphalt parking lot and an old, unused kitchen into a thriving garden and learning center for students.



Slow Food
The Slow Food movement helps people rediscover the joys of eating and understand the importance of caring where their food comes from, who makes it and how it’s made. Slow Food has educational programs for everyone, and programs range from training teachers and collaborating on curricula to improving school lunches.

YES! Magazine often features exceptional poetry. Take a look at these three special poems!
(Click on title to view full version)

The Wild Geese Wendell Berry, poet and farmer Horseback on Sunday morning, harvest over, we taste persimmon and wild grape, sharp sweet of summer’s end… YES! Magazine #40—Winter 2007

Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits Award-winning poet Martin Espada No one asks where I am from, I must be from the country of janitors… YES! Magazine #11—Fall 1999

Yes Charles John Pace the morning is my lamp and I say yes the rain that dances slowly is a sister of the sun so I shall smile and eat bright candy on the funny prismed bow of sister’s streaming hair I will paint the yellow leaves a different hue and sing forever on the land that is my mother and is yes… YES! Magazine #16—Winter 2001

Chicago street musician. 2006. Photo by Ken Ilio

Maestros y profesores de español pueden leer YES! en español, online. Por favor, avisen a sus colegas y estudiantes hispanohablantes.

Visita nuestra página para ver recursos en español, y artículos de las secciones temáticas de YES!

Related Resources:
For an inside and human look at Mexico—through the voices of Mexicans— take a look and listen to this contemporary and engaging website, Alive in Mexico.

See our exciting new features on the web:

MUSIC
Brazilian Afroreggae, Raffi's Cool It, and more…

VIDEO
Interviews with
David Korten and others.

SLIDE-SHOWS
The Defenders,
In Their Own Words, 10 Ways…

AUDIO
Listen to Iraq Veterans: Activists for Peace.

CARTOONS
Laughing Matters: the YES! cartoon caption competitions.

FILMS
Latin American movie resources, and YES! film picks.

www.yesmagazine.org

Valle de la Luna, Bolivia.
Photo by Lucy O'Doherty

More art from our Latin America issue in this photo essay.