Category: Events

OPEN CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Join the official Preselection Committee for the 14th Annual SIMA Awards, celebrating the finest in documentary and XR impact storytelling from 140 countries. Our committee brings together filmmakers, editors, producers, curators, journalists, human rights advocates, social justice innovators, and postsecondary students.

As a committee member, you’ll have the exclusive opportunity to screen up to 100 documentary films (features and shorts) submitted to SIMA, using our evaluation tools and metrics to assess each project. This entirely virtual experience runs from September to December, allowing you to participate at your own pace.

By joining, you’ll gain unparalleled insight into groundbreaking independent filmmaking, earning a certificate of completion for your CV, and deepening your perspective on the world through these compelling stories. We’re looking for candidates with a strong passion for human rights, social justice, and social innovation who are studying or working in media, communications, journalism, international development, or human rights.

Learn more and Apply here!

Applications close on August 9, 2025

OPEN CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Join the official Preselection Committee for the 14th Annual SIMA Awards, celebrating the finest in documentary and XR impact storytelling from 140 countries. Our committee brings together filmmakers, editors, producers, curators, journalists, human rights advocates, social justice innovators, and postsecondary students.

As a committee member, you’ll have the exclusive opportunity to screen up to 100 documentary films (features and shorts) submitted to SIMA, using our evaluation tools and metrics to assess each project. This entirely virtual experience runs from September to December, allowing you to participate at your own pace.

By joining, you’ll gain unparalleled insight into groundbreaking independent filmmaking, earning a certificate of completion for your CV, and deepening your perspective on the world through these compelling stories. We’re looking for candidates with a strong passion for human rights, social justice, and social innovation who are studying or working in media, communications, journalism, international development, or human rights.

Learn more and Apply here!

On Monday, August 25, best-selling author Clint Smith will discuss his soon-to-be-released young readers edition of How the Word Is Passed: Remembering Slavery and How It Shaped America, adapted by Sonja Cherry-Paul. Smith will be in conversation with Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian and educator and Prentiss Charney Fellow Jessica A. Rucker.

The Summer Institute is the place to fill your mind and your virtual bookshelf with curriculum-boosting teaching practices and instructional resources.

You’ll join Climate Generation, the North American Association for Environmental Education, and 20 regional climate change education leaders with educators from across North America dedicated to teaching climate change as an interdisciplinary issue. More than 30 presenters from across the country will facilitate interactive, hands-on workshops designed to engage and inspire you. At this three-day institute, you will investigate climate change education best practices, interact with climate change curriculum, and gain skills to teach climate change while inspiring hope and efficacy.

July 14 and 15, 2025, plus one regional cohort day on July 16 or 17
Registration $250 | Scholarships Available | Graduate Credit Available | 20 Hours of Continuing Education

>> Learn more

From the sea-nomad shores of the Philippines to the night clubs of Istanbul, the campaign trail of New York City to the creative streets of Johannesburg and more, these 13 powerful stories uplift LGBTQIA+ voices reclaiming space, rewriting narratives, and reshaping communities.

Watch here

Juneteenth — June 19th, also known as Emancipation Day — is one of the commemorations of people seizing their freedom in the United States.

This beautiful tradition of Black freedom should be taught in school.

Yet, if this administration has its way, it will be illegal to teach students about Juneteenth. Most states have passed or proposed legislation to prohibit teaching about structural racism and books are being banned from school libraries in record numbers. The president’s executive orders do the same. Their goal: to outlaw teaching about the founding of this country on slavery and genocide, as well as about the long Black freedom struggle. 

Some laws ban teaching about the structures and systems that led to enslavement and how these practices continue to manifest in policing, redlining, voter suppression laws, and more.

But educators continue to teach truthfully about structural racism. They are doubling down on their commitment to teach young people about institutionalized racism and how to organize for justice.

This month, educators joined the national #TeachTruth campaign to defend the right to teach truthfully about U.S. history, immigration, the climate, Palestine, and more; to protest book bans; to defend LGBTQ+ rights; and to challenge fascism.

There are upcoming Teach Truth displays at Juneteenth festivals, including in Bridgewater, Massachusetts; Vadnais Heights, Minnesota; Potsdam, New York; Painesville, Ohio; and more.

Continue Reading

Teach About Juneteenth Outside the Textbook

We offer articles and lessons to teach outside the textbook about Juneteenth. It Was Not the “News” That Traveled Slowly — It Was “Power” by Christopher Wilson

Long History of Commemorations by Clint Smith

Black Troops Spreading the Word with Every Marching Foot by Greg Carr

A rich collection of global stories that spotlight human resilience and community-driven solution. From reclaiming and preserving heritage to addressing labor injustice, ecological collapse, and gender taboos these films offer powerful, grounded narrative that challenge perspective and inspire action.

Explore new additions

The newly updated Next Generation Climate curriculum builds on the previous versions to not only offer current scientific data and figures but to incorporate a more human-centered approach. In the 2025 version, you will see discussions of the root causes of climate change; examples of leaders in climate justice movements; more guidance for how to take climate action; and opportunities for reflection and mindfulness to support students’ mental health.

DOWNLOAD THE UPDATED RESOURCE

LEARN MORE

Bonus: Are you an elementary educator based on or around the Twin Cities? Join us on August 13 for a workshop with other K-2 educators! We’ll dive deep on our two K-2 resources, Food Solutions and Healthy Habitats, and explore ways to integrate climate justice solutions into early elementary classrooms. Sign up for the workshop today!

For Memorial Day Weekend, we feature an article by David Blight about the early origins of the holiday, led by African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina, after the Civil War; an article by Howard Zinn urging us to never embark on mass slaughter again; and the documentary and companion oral history collection, Memorial Day Massacre: Workers Die, Film Buried.

Memorial Day Articles and Film

Black education was a fugitive project from its inception — outlawed and defined as a criminal act regarding the slave population in the southern states and, at times, too, an object of suspicion and violent resistance in the North. — Jarvis Givens, Fugitive Pedagogy

We just posted Legalize Black Education: The Long Fight for the Right to Learn by Jesse Hagopian. This lesson reveals a pattern: When Black people make significant educational gains — or score victories in their broader struggles for freedom — there is a corresponding white supremacist backlash that often includes legal restrictions and violence. 

Students explore laws passed to curb Black education in the wake of major victories for the Black Freedom Struggle, highlighting the historical context and motivations behind these legislative efforts. They also discuss quotes about Black education.

Check out the lesson and let us know if you use it in your classroom. We’ll send you books in appreciation for your teaching story.

Handouts from the lesson are also available to use as mini-lessons for the Teach Truth Day of Action.