Richard Kincaid—EcoRise

[00:01] Justin Baeder:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, director of the Principal Center and champion of high performance instructional leadership, Justin Baeder. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:15] Richard Kincaid:

I'm your host, Justin Baeder, and I'm honored to be joined today by Richard Kincaid. Richard is the chief innovation officer for EcoRise and a former educator and curriculum director in a number of different school districts in Texas.

[00:31] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:33] Richard Kincaid:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, Richard. Thanks, Justin. Glad to be here. Well, I wonder if we could start by framing for our listeners what EcoRise does. What do you do with schools to help students and to build programs to allow students to make a difference in the world?

[00:49] Richard Kincaid:

So at our very core as an organization, we believe that sustainability is a really important thing for students to be learning. And In the broad sense of curriculum within schools, there seems to be a disconnect between the actual science and math and other things that you learn and how those things are applied to the real world. And so we want students to be able to leave their classrooms and have a deep understanding of how the things they're learning impact the world around them, specifically around sustainability. So we do that a number of ways. We provide curriculum so that teachers have a nice framework to follow. But we also provide teacher training and development because sometimes teachers have passions around things like sustainability, but aren't really that confident in how to connect those dots between the everyday school life.

[01:43]

and the everyday context of things like sustainability. So we guide them through that process so they feel really comfortable about it.

[01:50] Richard Kincaid:

And I think any time we're working with students in kind of a project-based setting, we're looking for ways to connect that to real-world problems. We don't want to just create kind of artificial simulations or scenarios that students are working through in the abstract. Kids want to have a real impact on the world. They want to make a difference in real-world projects. And yet, we know on the school side, designing programs like that is often a challenge. You know, figuring out what's something that we can actually bite off and tackle, and then how do we set that up in such a way that it's supported, that it's scaffolded, that it's successful, and that it actually teaches the skills that we need it to teach.

[02:30]

You know, if we're going to spend curricular time on a particular project, it needs to solve a couple of problems at once for us. So thinking about the interest in STEM education and sustainability and 21st century skills, what are some of the aspects of your work with school districts to develop these programs that kind of solve multiple problems at once, if you will?

[02:54] Richard Kincaid:

And so one of the things that I noticed a lot as a CT director is You know, as STEM became this nationwide effort, it became kind of the buzzword of the thousands. You know, we wanted STEM education. What I discovered as an administrator is a lot of times those STEM programs are limited to what kids can do inside of the classroom. And so they learn the math and the science behind it, but they're building models that don't have a lot of impact to their local communities. And for me, that was a big disconnect. And so at EcoRise, we would almost refer to those things as faux STEM, right?

[03:34]

And so you learn about it, you do it in a very controlled environment, but it doesn't really lead to significant impact. And so I would say we focus a lot of our time on authentic STEM challenges. We want kids to know the math and science and the social studies and the historical perspectives and know how to write really well-crafted narratives. but we want them to take all of that knowledge that they've accumulated and apply it to something locally within their community. And so one of the easiest ways to describe how that works is through our eco audit program. So we talk to a number of our students about different contexts of sustainability.

[04:16]

It may be something like water consumption or waste on their campus or their local community. It may be around food and talking about the differences between organic and conventional might be something like transportation and recognizing, you know, all of those parent cars in front of the campus that sit there idling, you know, for 40 minutes waiting for their kids to get out of school. And, you know, there's a lot of research of the direct connection of those sorts of activities and asthma and indoor air quality, you know, in places like schools. And so we kind of present those pieces and say, you know, here's, Here's kind of what the science is saying. Start asking the right questions. Inquiry is really important.

[05:02]

Does it make sense? Is there a legitimate connection to all of the waste that you're throwing out in a cafeteria and the expanding mountain of trash in a landfill? Who do you need to ask about that? What data do you need to collect? And then we ask them to collect it. And so a lot of times, students, when they see the data, You know, their eyes get really big and they're like, wow, I didn't even realize the impact that my 25 minute hot shower was having over the course of time.

[05:33]

And so once they collect that data, they kind of had that aha moment. We walked him through a design process and we say, what can you do about it? You know, if you're throwing out 150,000 pounds of trash through your school cafeteria, what can you do about that? to send less stuff to the landfill. And so then they go through this whole iteration process. And we ask them at first to just kind of throw everything out there and see what solutions they can come up with.

[06:06]

And we have them narrow it down to things that are actually achievable, both within the timeframe of school, but also with some of the other constraints, like what they have access to, like particularly dollars. And then we have them craft an actual solution and present that out to an authentic audience. We take it a step further though, Justin, because a lot of times that's where schools have to stop. So they have these solutions and they're like, this sounds really good. It's a great plan. You created a poster on it.

[06:37]

You know, what a great video that you've created. And for us, that's not enough. We're a nonprofit. We are based, you know, at our soul. We are focused intensely on impact. The way that we help get that impact is we provide micro grants directly back to these student projects so that once they've come up with a solution, we have them test it.

[07:02]

What better way to have an impact than to actually do the project that you went through this whole design process of, and then you actually do it. The city of Austin is a great example. We have a partnership with the city. They fund all of these projects. to the tune of about $500 each. We awarded close to $20,000 this year.

[07:23]

And the amazing thing about that is the average project resulted in nearly $5,000 worth of resource savings for the local school district. That return on investment is ridiculous.

[07:38] Richard Kincaid:

And I think that's one thing that is easy for us to overlook because we're just used to it. But every school is spending tens of thousands of dollars in utilities, in waste disposal. And it might seem like $500 is a lot to kind of come up with to fund a student project. And I think that's a great and innovative way to kind of bring that back into the school. But just the savings opportunities are...

[08:03]

you know, so enormous in almost every school. And it sounds like a lot of what you're talking about here is design thinking or the idea of kind of iterating on a problem that you've identified after collecting some data. And I know you personally have a background in career and technical education. Is that right?

[08:20] Richard Kincaid:

Correct.

[08:20] Richard Kincaid:

How have you seen some of those career in tech ed or design thinking elements kind of interweaving for different age levels? Because I know if we're talking about a senior project, then it might be conceivable that students would have all the skills they need to run with something like this. But what are some of the factors that go into teaching that kind of design thinking and helping students go through a process that results in something that they can actually implement?

[08:46] Richard Kincaid:

Yeah. And so as an organization, we started off focusing only on high school classes. And at the time, about eight to nine years ago, it was only a specific niche. High school science teachers that usually taught something like environmental science. And so, you know, that was the low hanging fruit. That was a place where we thought, you know, they'll have the most buy in.

[09:08]

These kids will have, you know, the right skill set. You know, this is what's going to set us up for success. So fast forward eight to nine years later, what we've discovered is kids at all ages come up with the most amazing designs. And when presented with data that they've collected and given a process to kind of analyze that, kids are probably the greatest untapped resource that exists within communities simply because of their ability to internalize and think creatively. You know, while we do live comfortably within CTE programs, you're right, you know, these sorts of classes are well suited for this sort of project. What we've learned is teachers are hungry for ways to connect the things that they're doing in their classroom to an authentic project.

[10:06]

In the past two years, our best growth sector has been elementary. middle to lower elementary, we've seen some incredible projects. Just north of Austin in a town of Round Rock, we have an elementary school that had one of the best showcase presences this year. And it's really cute to see elementary students that are interacting with data that they've collected, telling an audience about what they've come up with and showing significant impact. And so I think it's really kind of changed our view of the best places for this sort of activity to happen. I believe it's any classroom anywhere that's looking to connect the things that they're doing to their local communities.

[10:57]

You know, all of our impact data, I think would support that.

[11:01] Richard Kincaid:

So Richard, how does a school become involved with the work that your organization is doing?

[11:06] Richard Kincaid:

It's complicated. And I think that's probably the best answer for anything to do with education. You know, for us, it really is a multifaceted approach. You know, those initial conversations could be a teacher that ran across us on the internet and maybe through a campaign that we do. I would say probably our best recruiting method our current teachers that work with us. So that word of mouth component is a great recruiting tool.

[11:33]

We also partner with a number of municipal organizations. And so I've mentioned the city of Austin. We're working through negotiations at this point with cities like San Antonio, New York Department of Education in the city of New York. We have fairly established programs in the District of Columbia and in Boston in both of their public school systems. And that was an introduction and funding provided by the US Environmental Protection Agency. We have a number of conversations happening on the West Coast, and those are fairly organic.

[12:10]

They're wanting to tie together a number of their sustainability initiatives that already exist. We also work with organizations at a state-by-state level. So as an example, here in Texas, probably our Our most famous and beloved grocery store is called H-E-B. In fact, they just passed 100,000 employee mark. And so they are large. They're our state's largest local grocery chain.

[12:38]

And they take an incredible stance on sustainability. So they have helped us make introductions with a number of schools throughout Texas in the communities that they serve. We also have nationwide partners like Southwest Airlines that believe that giving back to their communities and the places they serve is critical to not only the culture of their organization, but it's also something that I think they want their employees to be able to feel proud of, how they support their communities. And so they help connect us to other corporate partners, school districts, teachers, teachers of their employees' kids. And so any which way that we can gain traction is what we do, and it's a complex model. There are so many different ways to get into a district, and there are so many different brick walls to hit when attempting to work with a district.

[13:33]

And so I think you just have to find the right places that work. and then pursue every single one of those that you can.

[13:41] Richard Kincaid:

What I think is so exciting about your organization is because you've been around for a while, it's been almost a decade, that you have that track record of figuring out how to develop a partnership. Because I will say, as a principal, often the way this kind of thing tends to begin is you have a teacher who's interested, or you have a parent who's interested, or you have some students who are interested. And by itself, that's not enough. It's incredibly difficult to get multiple aspects of this off the ground at once. And in my school, we had one teacher in particular who was extremely passionate about developing a composting program and just put in an enormous amount of work to make that happen, to get the approvals. And of course, in a major urban area, you can't just start composting.

[14:24]

You have to develop partnerships with organizations that can process that. And it wasn't simply a matter of carting the lunch scraps out back with a wheelbarrow. It was quite a complicated endeavor And I think one of my takeaways from that, in addition to just kind of recognizing that teacher's kind of heroic contributions to that and really genuine desire to make that a student driven initiative. You know, one of my takeaways is that we do need partnerships. You know, it's not enough to have one teacher or one parent or. a couple of students.

[14:59]

It really takes everybody. It takes teachers, it takes students, it takes parent volunteers, it takes leadership support. And I think one of the things that's great about your organization's approach, about EcoRise's approach, is that it develops that partnership leveraging existing models. Like you have so many schools out there that are already engaging students in these design processes and solving these challenges. Tell me a little bit more about your curriculum. What are some of the school-based curriculum programs that you offer for schools?

[15:28] Richard Kincaid:

Yeah, it's multifaceted. And I want to hit on something you just said, though, and highlight the importance of it. So campus administrators have these sort of rock star teachers on their campus that come in, they have these great ideas. But at some point, you know, the teacher is going to move on. whether it's through retirement because they've been that teacher for 50 years or just life happens and they have to go somewhere else. And sometimes those really great programs that they bring on board unfortunately leave with them.

[16:02]

And so you have the compost pile five years later that hasn't been tended to or these programs that everybody remembers how great it was but it's not there anymore. And so for us as an organization, that doesn't make sense. Like literally that's not sustainable. And so for us, that partnership piece becomes critical. It's the buy-in of the staff on the campus and the local community and the administrator, both at the district and the campus level. So that, you know, when teachers come and go, you know, it's such an embedded cultural piece.

[16:38]

And that's what we're really there to do is to support that with that partnership model. And so I just wanted to really point that out because it's so important and it's a concern for these sorts of programs. As far as our curriculum goes, we have a multifaceted entry point for our curriculum. Our flagship, we call it sustainable intelligence. And that's really intentional. We want to make sure that you know, students are really connecting the dots of their formal traditional education components and how it relates to sustainability.

[17:19]

And so that flagship curriculum is available kindergarten through 12th grade. It's scaffolded and aligned to a number of state standards, the national NGSS standards, next generation science standards for places like California, New York, Florida, you know, Massachusetts, DC, you know, that have taken their own perspective on those sorts of things. Like we've made some of those adaptations. That sustainable intelligence curriculum is also available in English and Spanish. And it's not just one of those Google Translate type translations. We actually work with a partner in Mexico City.

[17:58]

They are the largest private school network within the country of Mexico. And so all of our translations are native translations with cultural adaptations. And so when you talk about what the water supply looks like in the US, it's vastly different from Mexico and Latin American countries. And so when you're trying to make that education connection, those sorts of things are important. We cover seven different themes through that core curriculum, everything from energy and food and waste, transportation, to green spaces, we really, in water, we really want to give a holistic view of all aspects of that sustainability piece. The beauty of that is you don't have to teach it in a linear format.

[18:49]

If there are a couple of lessons that you really enjoy around one particular theme, they're going to be just as effective as if you teach all 172 lessons that are available know k through 12 to teachers we want to make sure that that price point is really important teachers have the ability of getting the curriculum only without any training or support for forty dollars it's incredibly accessible on top of that we have additional curriculum suites one of them is launching this coming year it's called lead prep it's really targeting high school construction, architecture, and civil engineering type courses. And what it's going to do is really emphasize green building.

[19:40]

It doesn't replace the current curriculum that's happening. It augments it and really kind of gives a different perspective that's missing in so many of our construction and trade programs. The great thing about that, we partner with the U.S. Green Building Council on it, and students will have the ability to take their lead green associate certification test prior to graduating, which is a big deal for CE programs. And so that will launch this coming August.

[20:09]

We're really excited about it. The other piece that we're launching this coming August is called ecopreneurship. And this sits right on top of either like a business management course or an entrepreneurship course. and really integrates that triple bottom line approach of people, profit, planet. Gives some really great case studies about how you can create a business that protects the environment, makes really great choices, but also your profits don't have to suffer as a result of doing those things. And in fact, it's probably beneficial.

[20:48]

I've seen a number of surveys lately where millennials are almost demanding a sustainability approach from the corporations. Three weeks ago, we saw shareholders with Exxon demand the exact same thing. And so, this is a really timely curriculum that will launch specifically for their CTE programs this coming August.

[21:14] Richard Kincaid:

And then you have other programs for the elementary level, the EcoSmarts program, program on biomimicry and science, and then, as you mentioned, the sustainable intelligence curriculum for K-12.

[21:26] Richard Kincaid:

Yeah, that biomimicry piece is really cool. It launched back in November. It's a partnership that we have with the Biomimicry Institute, And what's really neat is when you start looking at nature over time, you see how nature adapts in order to kind of confront challenges that it's presented with. And so what we do is we say, you know, what if we looked at nature as the best research and development laboratory on the planet? Like what would happen if we looked at the efficiencies of you know, wings on insects, you know, could that have an impact on flight efficiency for aircraft? You know, what if we looked at how, you know, bees create community in and of themselves and look at the decision-making of, you know, a hive of bees, you know, how does that influence decision-making processes for humans?

[22:24]

And so really looking at, you know, how nature addresses issues, Finding ways that we can mimic those sorts of things is really interesting. So that really fits nicely in high school biology, chemistry, and physics classrooms. So yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that one. It's a neat curriculum tool.

[22:43] Richard Kincaid:

Yeah, as a former science teacher, I'm captivated and we could talk for hours about this stuff. But to get people started, if people want to learn more about the work that you do or learn about the curriculum and the school programs that you offer, where can they find EcoRise online?

[22:57] Richard Kincaid:

You know, the easiest way to get started is to go to EcoRise.org. Our website will give you a lot of information, beginning with how you use this in the classroom all the way to the impacts that you can expect. We also have an e-store called Through that e-store, you can download freemium sustainable intelligence lessons so that you can get a good feel for what the curriculum looks like. There's also a number of free biomimicry lessons that are available as well through that website. We also share a lot of our impact data through our Facebook page.

[23:33]

So you can find us, which is EcoRise, on Facebook. You can also follow us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at EcoRise and find out all of the great information that's happening locally on our campuses and see some of the neat projects that are happening.

[23:48] Richard Kincaid:

I think it's so exciting to see things start to come together, things that perhaps we've wanted to happen separately. We've wanted to prepare students for 21st century careers, including some that don't even exist yet. So we wanted to prepare kids with the skills and the strategies that they will need to take with them into emerging careers. And on the other hand, we want to have kids working on authentic problems and working together in ways that will reflect how they'll work as adults. So it's very exciting to see all of that come together and, you know, address science standards, address engineering standards and the STEM opportunities we want to create for our kids. So Richard, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio.

[24:28] Justin Baeder:

Yeah, thank you, Justin. Have a great day. And now, Justin Baeder on high-performance instructional leadership.

[24:35] Richard Kincaid:

So high-performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation with Richard Kincaid from EcoRise? To me, one of the things that really stands out about our conversation and about the work that EcoRise is doing is the importance of partnership. And I say that often. somewhat reluctantly as a person who likes to just, you know, dive in personally and make things happen. Partnership is hard, right? Developing partnerships is a challenge and there is a cost to it and it's a lot of work.

[25:07]

But if we want to achieve great things, for example, if we want to create a program in our school where students are solving real world problems and developing 21st century skills and preparing themselves for STEM careers, that is a tall order. If we want to make that a doable, manageable program that we can actually sustain, perhaps a partnership is not extra work, but perhaps that partnership is really essential to making it happen. And I think we've all tried things on our own that perhaps were ambitious, that perhaps required a level of coordination and a level of effort that alone was not sustainable. So if your school is interested in EcoRise and the programs that they offer, certainly check that out at EcoRise.org. And whenever you in your school are pursuing an ambitious goal and you feel like it's not quite there, it's not quite sustainable, maybe you feel like you've bitten off more than you can chew, I want to encourage you to seek out partners because for any area of improvement, any area of innovation, there is an organization out there that is just waiting to give you a hand.

[26:16] Announcer:

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