Forms & Resources

Welcome to the Forms and Resources page. You will find all necessary documents for participation here plus resources for deepening and enriching your experience.

Resources for 2024 Theme of Peace

—https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-peace

–Peace in crisis information, click here.

–Here are many relevant themes from the Greater Good Wellness Center that can ultimately lead to peace. To access numerous links of value, click here.

Announcing the 2023 Theme: Environmental Justice

We will continue throughout September to add more links to this section and revise our website materials for your participation. Feel free to subscribe to our 2023 Resources e-mail list.

2023 Environmental Justice Theme Resources

  • Three organizations worked together on the environmental project “WeReclaim! Lower South Valley” that taught students excellent lessons about the ecosystem that led to them creating beautiful hexagons that will be displayed in September 2023. Thanks to the hard work and ingenuity of Earth Conservancy’s Communications Director Elizabeth Hughes; Carol Nicholas, Director of the SHINE Program based at Wilkes University and Executive Director of the Hexagon Project Beth Burkhauser, we can share this outstanding environmental lesson plan.
  • The 2022 Berkshire County Hexagon Project First Peoples Learning Guide by Stephanie Graham, Art Educator and Educational Leader includes the following helpful documents:
  • Resources from the United Nations Youth Programs:
  • Greater Good Science Center: Is Pursuing Happiness Bad for the Environment?
  • Greater Good Science Center: Five Ways to Develop “Ecoliteracy.”
  • Greater Good Science Center: The Role of Empathy to Save the Environment.
  • Art 21 Resources: The World is Yours video playlist here is an incredible source of contemporary art exploration for students, teachers and artists. “Art doesn’t stop where the real world starts,” affirms Olafur Eliasson. Artists in many ways embrace a role as purveyors of knowledge, creating works that challenge viewers to recognize, investigate, and appreciate their surroundings. While individuals enjoy the convenience of modernity, how often do they take into account the grey energy behind its production? Rackstraw Downes paints landscapes marked by human-made structures such as cell phone towers or electric wires—details that otherwise go unnoticed, consciously or not—and considers his job as an artist to “provoke this hypocrisy” of enjoying technological advancements without accepting their environmental ramifications. In this playlist, artists engage with environmental concerns to uncover opportunities to see the world through a new lens. From tracking natural phenomena to evaluating the impact of personal consumption, these artists position their work as jumping off points to reflect on our entanglement in these networks and society at large.
  • Welcome to Crash Course Climate and Energy! Over 12 episodes, they’ll take a look at the ways climate change is affecting our planet, untangle the evolving energy landscape, and learn to think critically about how we, as individuals and as a society, can affect the outcomes. Episode 1 premieres on 12/7/2022 Sources here.
  • Five Gyres Institute is a leader in the global movement against plastic pollution with more than 10 years of expertise in scientific research and engagement on plastic pollution issues. Learn more here.
  • Food Justice – growing a healthier community through art.

Resources that Are Valuable with Any Theme, to Encourage Creativity, Happiness

Kindness Theme Resources

  • We tend to think of hearts and love in February around Valentine’s Day, but kindness and love are necessary every day! Check out these activities to do in your classroom around the theme of gratitude and kindness. They will serve you well if you are working on this year’s Hexagon Project with the theme of Kindness.
  • Here is what Beth had to say about the theme of Kindness at the 2021 Recognition Event.
  • Based at the University of California in Berkeley, the Greater Good Science Center studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society.
  • The Pennsylvania Humanities Council (PHC) partnered with Philadelphia poet laureate Trapeta B. Mayson on a mission to help spread kindness. Through the PA Kindness Poem Project, residents were invited to share messages on social media that promote healing, generosity, reconciliation and peace. Here is an amazing crowd-sourced poem that came out of the PHC’s project. Hopefully the words will inspire visuals in your mind that you will want to use to create your Kindness Hexagons this year. Or perhaps you and your students will be inspired to write your own poem or essay from which students can picture visuals for the Kindness Hexagons they will create.
  • The Kindness Cloud is working to spark a Global Kindness Movement.
  • Here you can download a Kindness Project Pack to use at your school.
  • As we work toward a kinder and more peaceful world, this site from Curriculum of Hope, which is a Standing Committee of Connecticut State Organization, DKG [Delta Kappa Gamma Society International], offers some great ideas. This organization’s newsletter offers some wonderful ideas related to kindness as well.
  • Your students can experiment with Gelli Plates when creating their Kindness Hexagons. The following links lead to resources that explain the transfer process for Gelatin Printing, each focusing on slightly different ways of doing it using different materials. Read hear about laser image transfer prints. Check out Gelli Arts plus paint pens. Learn tips and tricks about Gelli Print Image Transfer in this video. And lastly, check out this video showing Gelli Plate Picture Transfers.
  • If you would like your students to learn and discuss ways to be kind online and help stop cyberbullying, visit an educator and presenter at Lesson Alive who offers a program aimed at students in grades 6-12 entitled Practicing Kindness online.

Lesson Plans to Incorporate Kindness

If you are interested in participating in this year’s hexagon project, in which the theme is Kindness, we are providing lesson plans for grades from K through 12th for your use. Thanks to practicing teachers and retired teachers: Melissa Cruise, Nicole Delevan, Danielle Fitzmorris, Kris Fontes, Jackie Thomas, Melissa Gallagher and Lisa Temples, who generously submitted the lesson plans below.

Visual For Middle School Lesson Plan
Middle School Students can incorporate the theme of Kindness beautifully, as shown above.

Diversity/Equity Theme Resources

Technology, Social Justice and the Arts Resources

Curriculum Resources

Lesson Plans & Unit Outlines

Multimedia