Future Generations University 2019 Report

UNGER QUALITY EDUCATION GEN DER EQUALITY CLEAN WATER ECO YSTEM MONITORING BIG DATA CO LECTION & INTERPRETATION BIO LIMATE ACTION HELP RESPONSIB CONSUMPTION SHAPE THIS HOW TO ADAPT SDGs FUTURE POVERT STAINABLE COMMUNITIES INNO ON CLEAN ENERGY GOOD HEAL & WELL BEING NATURE-BASED EN ERPRISE FOREST FARMING UN APPED RESOURCES PEACE JUSTIC NVIRONMENT PARTNERSHIPS LI BELOW WATER RESPONSIBLE PRO DUCTION REDUCED INEQUALITIE NDUSTRY INFRASTRUCTURE ECO NOMIC GROWTH DECENT WOR CLEAN WATER AND SANITATION 1 STRONG INSTITUTIONS LIFE ON

APPLIED LEARNING PAGE 5

A method anyone can use …

DEVELOPMENT THROUGH LANGUAGE PAGE 37 MONITORING NATURE PAGE 25 NATURE-BASED ENTERPRISE PAGE 49

… to change their world HOW TO ADAPT PAGE 13

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Research, Learning, Action for Inclusive & Sustainable Community Change Worldwide

Dear Friends, Here is how you can turn problems into progress. Help communities learn how to respond to their challenges—to grow just and sustainable futures. Balanced lives, resilience of Nature, stronger societies, even peace grows … and at scale. See the brochures accompanying.

You can cause this bottom-up growth to happen—advancing methods that bridge Science and people’s needs. Learning results to equip groups to create effective, affordable, change, and change that lasts. Future Generations has been transforming communities for over 27 years. That impact is now across 41 countries.

Personally, you can see this in field-based courses. Vietnam this January, here at the Potomac headwaters this June, or next January in India at Mahatma Gandhi’s study center. More information is at: Future.Edu and Future.Org. Or, you can help others learn. Train front-line leaders of community change all over the world. Make a gift at Future.Edu/Giving Distinctive about Future Generations is the community-based emphasis. Here are specific programs you can help: Applied Learning to prosper in our changing world, page 5 How to Adapt to grow community-driven change anywhere, page 13 Monitoring Nature to guide sustainable development, page 25 Development Through Language for future leaders, page 37 Nature-Based Enterprise to advance people and planet, page 49 A gift you make now will double due to a generous challenge grant that matches your gift dollar-for-dollar up to $100,000. Together, let’s generate a better future.

For your past support, thank you.

Daniel C. Taylor

President

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APPROACH

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Applied Learning in a changing world

Masters.

Certificates.

Courses.

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Learning How to Change the World No one understands the needs of a community better than the members of that community. By making the community the classroom, Future Generations allows each student to direct his or her learning to get the skills to achieve his or her own community’s goals.

Future Generations Allows Students to: • Join a world-circling community of experts and like-minded classmates dedicated to sustainable advancement of their communities • Go at their own pace, taking a single course at a time or three, finishing a Masters degree in two, three or four years, or a Certificate in as short as a year.

• Attend class from home, office, or mobile device - No need to relocate to learn • Immediately apply learning in the real-world through Community Labs • See best practices in action on field-based courses, in the U.S. and in a wide range of countries • Earn credit for previous professional experiences to save money and graduate early Master’s Degree in Community Development The Master of Arts degree in Applied Community Development calls for student creativity, knowledge, leadership, and self-discipline.

Students learn the art of changing their community – whether through career, volunteer commitments, or civic engagement. The art is learning how change emerges.

This graduate program is the only one of its kind. Ideas and skills from around the world become applied in each student’s locale.

Communities function more effectively, moving toward goals fitted to their values and resources.

Learning begins in the Master’s degree (see www.Future.edu). After graduation, learning continues in a Global Network of Practitioners made up of Future Generations alumni (see www.Future.Org). A universe of learning grows in communities, by communities, as they continuously learn how to adapt to our changing world.

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Students shape their studies around their priorities, driven by personalized learning plans. Each course helps students facilitate community action and improve the impact of their organizations.

Specialized Certificates We also offer a number of certificates. The most common is in Community Development, which builds a skill base in creating a sustainable future for students’ communities and can be a first step to the Master’s program. Courses include: Introduction to Community Change Sustainable Communities Monitoring & Evaluation Resource Mapping

Going to Scale Change Your World Nonprofit Management Social Entrepreneurship

Courses can also be taken as a stand-alone. Check out upcoming offerings at www.future.edu/certificates-diplomas.

By teaching the SEED-SCALE method, Future Generations enables students to work within their communities toward any of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

For example, Rosie, a student in the M.A. program, organizes for community climate resilience in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley; her work advances her community toward SDG 14: Climate Action.

Abeeba, who works in Malawi on women’s microcredit initiatives, focuses now on the hunger consequences from Hurricane Idai, toward SDG 2: Zero Hunger.

Students tailor their work for each course around their particular goal or interest. Progressing through the course of study, to demonstrate what they have learned and accomplished, they create a media-rich ePortfolio (left) that showcases their accomplishments on their chosen path.

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Bottom-up Mobilization for the SDGs The university’s curriculum is based on SEED-SCALE. It presents a comprehensive theory of change that prescribes a universal process for developing site-specific solutions to community-identified problems. Communities use what they have to advance to where they want to go.

The method empowers communities to drive local action toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

It paves a path for local stakeholders to experiment with growing inclusive, sustainable change.

Keep Momentum on Track

Coordinate People, Resources & Time

Determine Direction & Partners

Develop Leadership

Find a Starting Point & Resources

Obtain a Relevant Education

For the first time in human history, Gather Local every country of the world has Evidence signed on to the same set of goals: the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In these, governments, many corporations, and donor agencies have shared targets to address poverty, health, education, peace, inclusion of all, and climate action.

Thus, in the SDGS the people of the world have a structure toward which to move forward, together. With SEED-SCALE, communities around-the-world have a method by which they can utilize structures and support from government, corporations, and donors. Future Generations gives the means of learning how to do this.

SEED-SCALE has a proven track record. From creating national parks in Tibet to improving rural health in Peru; from promoting peace in Afghanistan to empowering women in India, Future Generations has helped bring positive, lasting change around the world.

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Opportunities for You Joining this World-based Learning is Easy Field-based Study Options • Vietnam: From War to a Development Model - January 2020

• • • •

Washington DC and West Virginia: SEED-SCALE – June 2020 India: Gandhi’s Social Change Method – January 2021 Bolivia: Eco-tourism Ventures in the Amazon – TBD Greece: Walk with Socrates – TBD

Community Development Training • Enroll in a Certificate on Community Development and choose classes to fit your needs • Plan a customized training curriculum for your organization’s staff or members • Sponsor an employee to upgrade their skills in the M.A. program (or enroll for yourself! www.future.edu/masters-degree) Interested? Visit learning.future.edu or contact us at info@future.edu Not in a position to study yourself? Support education for students on the front-lines of community development with scholarships and financial assistance • • • • • •

Certificate Fee (non-credit): $150 Master’s Program Deposit: $500 Individual Course (3-credit): $1,500 Field-based Study for Low-income Students: $2,000 - $4,000 Partial Master’s scholarship: starting at $5,000 Full-ride Master’s scholarship: $18,000 (36-credits)

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METHOD

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How to Adapt in a changing world

SEED-SCALE Theory of Social Change 13

Our History

In 1992, Future Generations began tackling humanity’s toughest challenge. How can we improve our lives and sustain this progress?

The approach taken was to examine what had worked.

Especially, what had worked for communities to advance with what they had? Was there evidence for how progress is sustainable while working within budgets and holding to values that define people’s lives?

Around the world, community-based advancement was underway.

How was it happening? Could it be replicated and scaled up with little additional money?

SEED-SCALE has since grown in sophistication from a method to a comprehensive theory. SEED describes the start, which is growing local opportunities. SCALE is guided growth in quantity and quality within enabling environments, be they local, national, or global. There has been progress in monitoring community progress with key local indicators of change.

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Future Generations Co-founder Carl Taylor (middle) receiving the Presidential Medal from President Bill Clinton in 1994. He is accompanied by UNICEF Executive Director Jim Grant (left).

Some abiding findings are: • Act as a local partnership with no expectation of outside help and funds.

• The best resources are likely those already in the community’s possession.

• Best practices can be gleaned in a life that is one of continual learning.

• Rising aspirations for quality of life attracts more and more people.

• Communities mature from cooperation on shared goals, and social change emerges.

Over a quarter century, SEED-SCALE continues to evolve on the basis of community-specific experiments and case studies. These are documented in Just & Lasting Change: When Communities Own Their Futures, 2nd Edition (Johns Hopkins Press, 2016) and Empowerment on an Unstable Planet: From Seeds of Human Energy to a Scale of Global Change (Oxford University Press, 2012).

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SEED-SCALE Summary

How Communities Can Advance

SUSTAINABILITY

Begin with Resources in the Community

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SCALABILITY

SCALE

SEED

The process of SEED-SCALE includes several steps: four basic principles, seven tasks to sustain momentum, five criteria to assess progress, and three dimensions of scalability.

SEED-SCALE SEED: Self Evaluation for Effective Decisionmaking SCALE: Systems for Communities to Adapt Learning and Expand Four Principles of Sustainability 1. Build from success 2. Form a three-way partnership between the bottom-up, the topdown, and the outside-in 3. Make decisions based on tangible evidence rather than opinions 4. Focus on behavior change rather than provision of services Seven Tasks to Sustain Momentum 1. Organize a local coordinating committee (LCC) 2. Identify successes already occurring 3. Learn from the experiences of others 4. Gather data about local results 5. Make and follow a workplan 6. Hold LCC and community members accountable 7. Make mid-course corrections to strengthen the Four Principles Five Criteria for Self-Evaluation 1. Inclusivity 2. Sustainability 3. Holism 4. Interdependence 5. Iteration Three Dimensions of SCALE 1. SCALE 1: Stimulating Community Awareness, Learning, and Energy (quantitative) 2. SCALE 2: Self-help Centers for Action, Learning, and Experimentation (qualitative) 3. SCALE 3: Synthesis of Collaboration, Adaptive Learning, and Extension (enabling environment)

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Our Method Four Principles of Sustainability These principles are a basis for nurturing sustainable communitydriven development. They provide a framework for understanding how social change is nurtured, sustained, and scalable.

1. Build from success • Focus on what is working. Encourage positive outcomes.

Acknowledge and learn from weak results.

• Not all problems can be solved at the outset. Still do not ignore them.

• Establish a community understanding of “success.”

• See that rising aspirations emerge—they are not determined by others.

• As successes improve the quality of life for some, others will want to join. More participants foster innovation. Improved success leads to new aspirations.

Revolution of Rising Aspirations 2. Form three-way partnerships • Form partnerships of actors: bottomRising numbers coupled with rising sophistication up (local agents of improved lives and behavioral change), top-down (enablers, policymakers, funders), and Action outside-in (innovators, collaborators from beyond one’s community).

Innovation • Communities change positively as people appreciate other’s assets and roles, Aspirations and they determine a course of collaboration.

Rising aspirations • As initial tasks are achieved, new roles emerge. Adjust. Partner smartly.

3. Make decisions on the basis of evidence, not opinion • Communities can learn to identify and gather evidence, such as key indicators of positive change.

• This approach differentiates between what people think and what they come to know.

• Locally relevant expertise is essential for determining key indicators.

4. Focus on behavior change rather than provision of services • When communities make plans for themselves rather than implement plans made for them it is more likely that positive behavior change from within will emerge.

• Leadership must discern when to step back and allow communities to point to their own rising aspirations.

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Seven Tasks to Sustain Momentum These seven tasks mobilize the four principles that guide and sustain growth. They are a cycle of activities, to be repeated iteratively. They parallel what we know from the agricultural cycle of plowing, planting, irrigating, and harvesting. Each task is integral to the holistic cycle.

Neither agriculture nor social change are effective unless all tasks are completed. Allow for iteratively improved steps rather than anticipating perfection.

1. Organize a local coordinating committee (LCC) • Social change is effectively managed by a team that is inclusive and representative.

• Dysfunctional team members must be replaced by new, productive, reliable members.

2. Identify successes already occurring • See what has worked and continues to work in a community.

• Analyze underlying evidence supporting this success, and set key performance indicators.

3. Learn from the experience of others • Communities learn from each other to adapt to new challenges and growth.

• Adaptation leads to innovation, improved lives, and outreach.

4. Gather data about local results • Understanding community (in the sense of shared purpose and collaborative potential) begins with gathering evidence.

• Organizing community events, surveys, and polling engage people and propagate ideas.

5. Make and follow a workplan • Develop a clear workplan with 3 to 5 specific tasks.

• For each task, discern who will do what, by when, where, and with what requisite resources.

6. Hold partners accountable • Adhere to agreed-upon roles.

• Building accountability helps ensure local agency of community change and aspirations.

7. Make mid-course corrections and strengthen the Four Principles • Mid-course correction is a process for learning to direct actions.

• Making corrections may effectively assess and strengthen the underlying principles.

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Five Criteria for Self-Evaluation These five criteria monitor local success and growth. They can complement other assessments methods and indices. They help track whether change is positive or problematic.

1. Inclusivity • So all have an opportunity to participate in change, inclusivity is more effective than exclusivity.

• As all individuals partake in benefits from social change, a community becomes healthier.

• Since change is challenging and obstacles will arise, address blockage and grow paths of inclusion.

2. Sustainability • Balance environmental, economic, and sociocultural growth to minimize depletion of resources.

• As people and cultures adapt to change, communities must identify values that are to endure.

3. Holism • People and communities are complex. They have diverse needs and aspirations. So growth occurs within multiple complementary social and economic sectors.

• Holistic life improvements require parallel achievements and growth across different sectors.

4. Interdependence • Regard and reciprocity shore up available resources between individuals and communities.

• All sides gain with genuine interdependency.

5. Iterative • Complete an action, examine data, analyze and learn from the process, and make improvements.

• Incorporate gradual improvements and allow repetition to generate perfection.

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Three Dimensions of SCALE Once a community sustains its desired change, it may scale up with internal and external resources. Community decision making and action are still the drivers of quantitative and qualitative change, but now broader partnership can augment an enabling environment for positive change.

SCALE 1—stimulates community awareness, learning, and energy (quantitative) • Increased local participation and scope of activities.

• Validated with local evidence and empowering results.

SCALE 2—self-help centers for action, learning, and experimentation (qualitative) • Rising aspirations for quality of life.

• Social growth enhanced through applied learning, replication of successes, and experimentation.

SCALE 3—Synthesis of Collaboration, Adaptive Learning, and Extension (enabling environment) • Evidence of improved quality of life invites more participation and communities.

• An enabling environment, such as policy, market, or education system, increases cooperation, promotes new approaches, and reaches new regions.

Why SEED-SCALE Succeeds Doubles Impact

In Half-the-time

Traditional

For Fifth-the Cost SEED-SCALE

Professionals do the work

Partnerships of all do the work

Identify needs, fix these

Grow successes already happening

Develop a plan/blueprint

Evolutionary/iterative growth

Raise funds, then work begins

Begin using in-community resources

Tell community what to do

Mentor/learn-from the community

Power & money frame decisions

Gather local evidence, then decide

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A Method Anyone Can Use To Reach a Sustainable Future In 2015 the United Nations, with 100% buy-in from all 193 Member States, adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It promotes peace and prosperity for people and the planet through 17 shared goals. These Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set global targets for education, health, economic well-being, climate action, in nearly every facet of life.

Governments, international NGOs, and corporations are already on board, but change must reach to the grassroots to have inclusive sustainable change. SEED-SCALE offers a way for anyone to make an impact on the SDGs and improve their livelihoods.

Communities learn how to identify shared priorities and select which SDGs to focus their energy on, then forge partnerships to advance behavior changes that create measurable change. SEEDSCALE offers a process to create momentum, build on success, and guide communities on how to monitor, improve, and scale-up SDG impact based on evidence.

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How Communities Can Advance

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RESEARCH

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Monitoring Nature in a changing world

Big Data Collection . & Interpretation 25

Songs of Adaptation is Observing the Natural World and Documenting Change

The world is changing. In order to adapt sustainably, communities must understand the context of our changing world. We must have quality, locallyapplicable information to allow for evidence-based decision making.

The Songs of Adaptation Project is part of Future Generations University’s Monitoring Nature initiative. The project brings together several data-collecting instruments to monitor life across gradients of elevation or land use. It fosters deeper understandings of ecosystem health and change at local levels.

The first major installations are in biodiversity hotspots in remote areas of Nepal and Bolivia. In these locations, instrumentation continually monitors bioacoustics (life sounds), temperature, and humidity.

Research stations are installed at regular intervals along gradients. The data generated by these stations are supplemented with vegetation surveys, wildlife photography, and historical data.

Individual monitoring stations or a series of stations can be placed anywhere in the world through this initiative. Each will tell its own story

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Songs of Adaptation team testing solar powered audio recorders at an ecological restoration site in West Virginia, USA.

of place and change therein. Future Generations has begun monitoring at two educational centers in the United States, on the Northernmost extremity of the Chesapeake Bay and at the highest point in West Virginia. There are also a number of other smaller installations in areas including a tidal marsh and a riparian buffer zone restoration site at the headwaters of the Potomac River.

Over time, the data may reveal changing patterns emerging from human and natural causes. Each station produces about one terabyte (1 million megabytes) of audio data per year. Interpreting all that data requires cutting edge technology.

Deep learning algorithms identify and categorize sounds from key species, which are often birds. Local experts help improve identification models and take the information back to communities.

The University is honored to be part of Microsoft’s AI for Earth grantee community, which supports our global team with cloud computing credits and project funds to develop machine learning models and big data analytics. The Songs of Adaptation team is also grateful for support from other anonymous and individual donors that has already helped this project come so far.

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The Data Checking sounds on a data recorder in Bolivia.

Sound is an underutilized tool in documenting biodiversity worldwide.

Microphones do not sleep, nor is there need to focus on animals in the right lighting to document their existence. All an animal needs to do to have its presence recorded is call out.

One research station, for example, placed in a forest in Maryland, set to a recording pattern of five-minutes-on, ten-minutes-off, captured more than 250,000 sounds in a month. Many were vocalizations from birds, amphibians, and insects. Through sound recordings, Nature can tell humans what is happening in a given ecosystem.

A sample chorus of songbirds (above right) was recorded in Nepal in 2017.

The red visualization is an audio waveform that shows the amplitude of the sound over time. The green is a spectrogram; it shows the intensity of sound as well as frequency. Time stretches along the x-axis for both waveform and spectrogram in this example for 20 seconds.

In March 2019, five stations were installed in a complex of protected areas in Bolivia. The areas are adjacent to Madidi National Park, which has

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Image of bioacoustics data from Nepal in 2017.

the highest biodiversity of any national park on Earth.

Current monitoring locations

Two monitoring stations in the USA, one in a meadow, the other in dense spruce forest, report from Spruce Knob, the highest point in the Potomac River watershed, and in all of West Virginia. At the northernmost extent of the Chesapeake Bay in North East, Maryland, NorthBay Education maintains a research station, which is tied to educational initiatives as well as data collection.

Development is underway on a growing number of sites in a new riparian buffer zone to document the recovery of species as a restored stream corridor is allowed to grow into a healthy ecosystem.

In the Mt. Everest ecosystem, in the Amazon, and in the Potomac, experimentation is also evolving to include the use of solar power to promote wider extension of the methodology in more research sites.

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Songs of Adaptation project has direct links to the SDGs We promote hands-on learning experiences valuing biodiversity with school students and local community leaders.

In partnership with outdoor education schools, the Songs team teaches biodiversity to students. With the iNaturalist app, students identify species in their communities and discuss the importance of diversity in their everyday lives.

We are prototyping solar panel systems to implement in remote mountain locations. Utilizing cloud computing to monitor energy efficiency of research stations, big data is used to optimize solutions. The Songs team works with local businesses to source solar materials that will expand local alternative energy solutions.

We are partners with existing economies to employ local leaders. Each community is unique in how the tools we provide fit into their local economy. One might be utilizing the acoustic data to support local adventure tourism, another might partner with a neighboring national park to get global recognition for the park’s biodiversity.

We measure the acceleration of climate change worldwide in Bolivia, Nepal, and the United States. Songs works with governments and nonprofits in three countries, utilizing big data and community stories to inform systemic change. It is essential that decisions made for social change are based on strong evidence.

We gather baseline data in diverse ecozones. Monitoring stations are thoughtfully placed in diverse forests and rainforests as well as alpine, high altitude, and riparian zones.

The data will allow for examination of changing patterns due to anthropogenic and natural causes. We strive to use this baseline data to protect biodiversity of communities and ecosystems globally.

Traveling to remote mountain villages, we see first-hand the challenges and successes of our local partners. Our team provides training in scientific concepts, electronics, English, and computer skills for collaboration with the growing global community.

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Birds-Eye-View: To an inclusive & sustainable future Preparing solar power for research stations in Nepal.

Future Generations defines community as a group of people who share something in common and have the potential to work and act together. This understanding provides a foundation to help communities grow. The data collected in diverse ecosystems in the Himalayas, the Amazon, and Eastern USA give rise to a global network of knowledge about climates and possible changes.

Stories from communities are a foundation for research. At every step of the process, communities have access to data. It is the goal of the Songs of Adaptation research project to respectfully include perspectives and stories of local communities in conjunction with advanced scientific monitoring techniques made possible by advancing technologies. This builds a compelling combination of accurate data with a lot of personality.

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In 1802, the German scientist Alexander von Humboldt and his colleague, AimĂŠ Bonpland, climbed Mt. Chimborazo in what is now Ecuador. As they ascended, they took careful barometric and temperature measurements. They linked these measurements to vegetation studies; they mapped from the lush jungle up to the alpine snows. A repeat survey of Chimborazo in 2012 found species had moved upslope an average of 1,500 vertical feet in 200 years!

In today’s era of accelerating climate change, Songs of Adaptation will advance an understanding of how communities everywhere can use evidence-based decisions to adapt to coming changes in climate.

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Pushing Ahead Deforestation is one of the most significant environmental changes occurring in Northern Bolivia. As land outside of the protected areas is altered by humans and stripped of forests, it is possible that the wildlife populations may shift their ranges.

The singular monitoring station would record these changes over time.

If temperatures are shifting over time, then species may shift up altitude gradients. These changes would be recorded by the research installation at El Chocolatal. With these initial installations in Bolivian pilot studies, we are developing partnerships and planning to branch out into larger study sites across the vast natural lands of the country.

Next Steps • Strengthened baseline data at key global sites • Scientific products that are engaging and accessible to all • More affordable and user-friendly equipment to set up new stations • Simpler software for non-specialists to analyze, query, and summarize data • Public media to distribute project progress and engage varied audiences • Income streams to financially support the projected growth • Development to meet the needs of both local and scientific communities • Strengthened local leadership • Community engagement and training • Science made actionable • Community-led adaptation initiatives • Growth of both US-based and international team • Involvement with more scientists • Engagement with additional community experts and specialists

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Get Involved!

Our project, Songs of Adaptation, provides a platform for global engagement in telling the stories of our changing world. Scientific observations are coupled with community participation through twoway dialogue.

Support this work through participation or contribution. Your contributions can fund such things as community climate change awareness training, bioacoustic monitoring, a wildlife camera, or the development of a middle school curriculum.

Participate As part of the global project, you will receive access to a standardized methodology and framework for participating in a scientific and community multi-dimensional dialogue. Data management, analysis, and summaries are part of this global framework.

Participation in the project is open to all. You can participate by contributing iNaturalist observations, installing a monitoring station in your backyard, or by creating a partnership for scientific observation and community engagement. We welcome all levels.

Host a Monitoring Station High-level community engagement and training are part of hosting a monitoring station. Local partners (national, regional, local) are a must. If you are interested in this level of partnership, contact us to discuss potentials! We’d love to add you to our global family that currently includes more than 20 locations in the United States, Nepal and Bolivia.

Educational Partners Join our team of partners! You would be among a growing community of outdoor education schools, scout troops, landowners, and conservation groups.

Partnering with education organizations, we provide methodology, suggestions for placement of instrumentation, curriculum development, iNaturalist training, and general support.

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LEARNING

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Development Through Language in a changing world

English Teachers Shaping the Future

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Language as a Tool for Development

Language opens doors—this project is opening Vietnam to the world.

It links teachers and students of diverse backgrounds so they may learn from each other. It connects one development sector to another, and then another. As Vietnam rapidly transforms, English is a door to modernize commerce, health, agriculture, engineering, rural and urban livelihoods, and the arts.

The language classroom becomes a hub for holistic and integrated learning. Vietnamese students acquire a second language to join global discourse. They amplify their voice on the basis of their ideas, data, culture, literature, and life stories. English is a developmental bridge from Vietnam’s villages, towns, and cities to the world.

With a variety of tools—text, website, teacher repository, and classrooms connecting to the world—a Vietnamese-centric language curriculum leads to applied fluency, knowledge, and skills to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations.

This curriculum also adheres to Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training secondary school standards.

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Spreads from Bending Bamboo textbook

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Uniquely Vietnamese yet Universal Vietnam faces hurdles similar to those shared among citizens and youth of many countries. These reflect the common dilemma of traditional cultures and politics being challenged by the outside.

Second language acquisition plays a critical role. It grows perspective. It voices indigenous concerns. It places cultures and problem-solving approaches alongside each other. Bending Bamboo provides the opportunity to learn and progress together. Three circles of research, learning, and action intersect. • • •

A core of learning and research from the university, A global action network of alumni who apply knowledge and skills in communities, A world-gathering Universe of Learning to join ideas and data across walks of life, faiths, and socio-economic position so that future generations may enjoy ennobling environments.

Global classroom

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Introductory page to Bending Bamboo textbook, Chapter 2

Delta rice farmer turns to shimp farming

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U.N. SDGs Through Second Language This project is called Bending Bamboo. It is a metaphor for a strong organic educational platform that draws upon a vast root system of nationwide and global input. It is the only language learning text in the country that is co-authored by Vietnamese and international educators. It is a communicative approach that features Vietnam’s context and content so as to nurture tasks and norms for sustainable development, social equity, ecosystem resilience, and rural-urban inclusivity. Each chapter begins and ends with Vietnamese profiles of change—citizens from all walks of life who show us all paths of sustainability.

The chapter topics ground the U.N. SDGs in present challenges facing Vietnam. Each chapter of each grade level equips teachers, students, schools, and communities to arrive at lasting solutions. Some are borne of Vietnamese experience. Other solutions arise in learning among partners worldwide.

Electronic Global Classrooms link rural and urban schools, a new experience for Vietnamese schools, and one endorsed by the government. They also connect Vietnam to regular guest instruction and dialogue from other countries. This innovation enriches the Vietnamese educational system so that students hear and share sustainability stories and solutions broadly.

This universe of learning for scholars, schools, and student peers, initiated by Vietnamese youth: • Combines online educational and library resources • Links classrooms applying SDG knowledge and skills • Provides relevant sustainability and resilience case studies • Reviews action research in language and development education • Offers opportunities for experiential field work • Provides scholarships for teachers in the Master’s degree program IEEE Smart Village and ON Semiconductor generously supported the two-year launch phase of Bending Bamboo.

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Milestones Ahead

A Local Coordinating Committee (LCC), in keeping with the SEEDSCALE method, guides this process. It is a team of Vietnamese and Future Generations educators who cooperate with government, private enterprise and global corporations, diverse groups of teachers, the United Nations and non-profit organizations in Hanoi, and leaders of several provinces.

The LCC coordinates these targets in teacher-training, prototype curricula, action research, and certification of teachers: 2020

Publish text, website, and teacher repository for grades 1012 with the Vietnamese government.

2021 Begin comparable teacher training and education deliverables for younger age groups—grades 6-9, then 1-5, and finally preschool-kindergarten.

2022 Grades 10-12 teachers equip colleagues in middle and primary schools to create text, website, and teacher repository for grades 6-9.

2023-24 Replicate teacher-teacher training, mentoring, and deliverables for grades 1-5.

2025-26 Replicate for preschool and kindergarten teachers.

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The Local Coordinating Committee leads in two forms of research: •

•

They uncover Vietnamese science, data, culture, and life stories, and link these materials to pertinent international information that supports or challenges Vietnamese findings.

They equip teachers to conduct ongoing action research to advance teacher-training, improved pedagogy across grade levels, and exceptional products to serve both Vietnam and a Universe of Learning.

This learning process goes forward amidst climate crisis, countrysideto-city migration, overpopulation, and environmental degradation.

Vietnam is among five countries most likely to bear the brunt of rising seas and salination of rice paddy and water. Complicating this climate crisis are 28 new upriver dams that are changing the flow of the Mekong River.

Ironically, Vietnam grapples with all this ‌ even as it enjoys at last a peacetime economy. With peacetime prosperity now emerging, so too Vietnam faces some of its greatest hurdles ever.

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How You Can Get Involved Bending Bamboo is a metaphor from a plant that spreads as an organic body, beneath ground and in the canopy of forests. It is green and renewable. It is essential to Vietnamese cooking. It forms simple toothpicks and serves as one of the strongest construction materials. 96 million Vietnamese citizens depend on it. And as a language and sustainability curriculum, Bending Bamboo connects Vietnam to a world of co-learners and collaborators.

Bending Bamboo relies on the Future Generations University Master of Arts in Applied Community Development, its worldwide research projects, and the work of its graduates in 41 countries. At the same time, it contributes its own breakthroughs in research, learning, and action to the collective attributes of the University.

Join one of our study tours to Vietnam. Engage this spreading project in one or more ways: • • • • • •

Supporting scholarships for teachers in the Master of Arts program Subsidizing publication of texts for equitable, inclusive rural-urban access Contributing to teacher-training—workshops, forums, certificates Researching the effectiveness of Bending Bamboo process and pedagogy Introducing Bending Bamboo to international corporations and non-profits Creating an online Library Resource Center for all participating schools BILINGUAL with PURPOSE to GROW the FUTURE of VIETNAM

BENDING BAMBOO

SUSTAINABLE | INCLUSIVE | RESILIENT | EQUITABLE

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ACTION

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Nature-Based Enterprise in a changing world

Forest Farming of Maple & Other Untapped Resources 49

An Economic Boost for Appalachia Sustainable forest farming allows landowners to harvest herbs, medicinal plants, syrup, timber, and a variety of products responsibly and economically. Future Generations University supports evidencebased decision making in partnerships with local institutions and conducts research, provides training, and facilitates action to grow this sector. Farmers and families prosper without destroying local ecosystems.

This program grows from local Appalachian culture and priorities, connecting this rural region to shared Global Goals for Sustainable Development.

Future Generations pioneers research and training programs to help West Virginians economically through sustainable landuse enterprises and create economic incentives for responsible ecology

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Faculty-led research carried out in partnership with farmers and producers in the field is discovering best practices in forest farming. The larger world receives strengthened ecosystems in water and soil conservation and a positive impact on carbon emission reduction in the modern climate change era.

In much of Appalachia, the maple syrup industry is a prime example of how landowners can earn sustainable, supplemental income from their standing woodlots. This mostly passive, seasonal activity is easy to start with the market for local syrups growing.

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Growing Results Since 2017, this program has brought the following to life: • Conducted research to evolve the industry. These include three studies beyond maple, specifically walnut, sycamore, and birch syrup tapping, plus two projects to develop more efficient processing technologies • Hosted the first ever Southern Syrup Research Symposium, bringing together 125 landowners, producers, policy makers, and researchers.

• Created a Professional Certificate “Maple Sap Processing and Syrup Production.” So far, twenty-seven individuals have participated.

Fourteen of the sixteen previous graduates are now making syrup, resulting in five new registered syrup businesses.

• Coordinated a Professional Mentoring Network, matching existing forest farmers with 24 neighboring landowners who want to operate their own nature-based enterprise.

• Delivered technical coaching to 12 new and existing nature-based business owners on equipment cost-share programs, training opportunities, financial planning, and marketing assistance.

• Prototyped a cooperatively-held syrup branding package as well as a mobile sugar shack to process maple syrup.

West Virginia has the potential for very significant future growth. It has more maple trees than Vermont. Vermont taps 100-times more of its maple resources than West Virginia, even though it has 20% fewer maple trees. The US Forest Service estimates that more than 76 million West Virginian maple trees are viable for commercial syrup production. If West Virginia’s tap rate could increase to a similar rate as Vermont’s, the sugar industry could boost the local economy by $24,000,000.

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United States

India

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Central America

The Big Picture: From Forests to Inclusive & Sustainable Futures

Maple Sap Collection & Syrup Processing certificate participants in West Virginia.

Forests can be managed holistically to nurture their agricultural potential, while bolstering their resilience as a sustainable ecosystem. This Future Generations program promotes applied research on forest farming practices to grow harmony between human livelihoods and the natural world.

While centered now in Appalachia, Future Generations affiliated opportunities also grow in other countries. Landowners around the world are advancing cultivation of healthy and resilient forests that also support nature-based enterprises. Growing the non-timber forest sector helps build an enduring future for both earth and humanity: • • •

Maple syrup production in West Virginia Cacao to Chocolate in South & Central America Eco Lodge in Arunachal Pradesh, India

Wider value comes beyond the delectables of chocolate, honey, mushrooms, tea, and spices. A nature-based approach to economic advancement allows people and land productivity to both rise, tying to the university’s mission to promote research, learning, and action for inclusive, sustainable change worldwide right here in our backyard.

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Next Steps for This Project

Future Generations University is working to establish production hubs comprised of syrup producers and sap collectors. Family farms with accessible maples receive the technical training and coaching needed to effectively collect sap. We encourage and help establish partnerships between those without the capability to evaporate and process the sap themselves and the larger sugar shacks in the region who have high-capacity evaporating equipment. Other potential areas for sustainable economic growth: •

Expanding focus of syrup-making research to include tree species such as Walnut, Sycamore, Black Birch, as well as tree uses perhaps yet not known.

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Raising productivity through equipment prototyping and experiments that fit not to alternative trees but also fit to habitat related use of trees (for example, maple syrup in West Virginia vs Vermont).

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Assessing economic options for nature-based enterprises and land-use planning to determine how these fit within broader regional planning for new businesses and tourism development

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Collaborating with West Virginia’s Non-timber Forest Products Steering Committee to advance working groups and research on economic development through non-timber forestry.

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Stand Up for Sustainable Land-use West Virginia is home to 20,900 farms totaling over 3.6 million acres—98% of which are “small farms.” This landscape lends itself well to landowners who can cultivate a maple operation that earns additional agricultural income, or other nature-based enterprises.

Strategic growth of this industry depends on the preservation of West Virginia’s cultural heritage of the family farm. It will allow landowners whose properties were once home to family farms that have since shut down or lie mostly idle to reopen or renew the farm with a naturebased business.

Ways to advance sustainable land-use: •

Learn how to start your own nature-based sustainable enterprise – visit maple.future.edu to explore certificates and resources available

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Donate to the project – Grants and gifts can support scholarships for training courses, technical assistance for small family farmers and landowners interested in sustainable land-use, and research related to economic development in Appalachia

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Buy local goods and products – support your local food economy by buying from family farmers and small businesses.

You can also attend local festivals and events like the annual West Virginia Maple Days

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Together, we can make a difference

North Mountain Campus 400 Road Less Traveled Franklin, WV 26807 USA Ph: 304.358.2000 Regional Offices Kathmandu, Nepal | Madidi National Park, Bolivia | Lima, Peru Punta del Este, Uruguay | Denver, Colorado www.Future.Edu & www.Future.Org

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