HEART

OUR WORK

K-12 In-class and After-school Programs

• HEART educators have been teaching classes that inspire respect and empathy for all living beings, explore critical social justice issues, and engage with complex environmental ethics questions in K-12 schools and after-school programs for over 15 years, with locations in NYC, Chicago, and Indianapolis. Our direct teaching programs have reached many thousands of students in hundreds of schools and youth organizations over the years.

Compassionate Communities

• NYC Compassionate Communities is our signature community service program, now entering into its 5th year of collaboration with New York City area public schools, where we have successfully partnered with students, educators, families, and engaged community members in building a powerful culture of compassionate youth activism in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island.

• HEART’s Chicago Compassionate Communities initiative is in its second year, working with high school aged students in the greater Chicago area in developing meaningful service opportunities in under-served neighborhoods.

• Our Youth Changemakers Clubs are designed for students in an after-school or community-based setting to put their empathy and passion for positive community engagement to work. HEART offers direct teaching for facilitating YCC’s in some locations, and club guidelines and resources for supervising staff elsewhere. The YCC clubs are designed to support developing strong respectful and collaborative group skills, facilitate research into local issues of interest to the students, and supervise implementation of a service action that is youth-led throughout the process. We offer small grants of up to $250 for purchasing club materials and resources needed to support the service action. 

Professional Development Trainings and Courses

• Through the NYC Department of Education’s After-School Professional Development Program ASPDP HEART has offered professional development courses to hundreds of NYC teachers for over a decade.

• Heart staff have provided individualized trainings for more than 15 years to educators at all levels of teaching, from Pre-K to Graduate degree programs, in many US states and internationally.

HEART also develops and maintains an extensive set of online resources for teachers and learners on our website for free download and use at: https://teachheart.org/library/

• Justice for All K-5 and Secondary School Guides, offering complete lesson plans organized around humane education themes with topics addressing timely issues in social justice, animal welfare, and environmental ethics areas, each with printable worksheets, engaging visual aids, and lots of supplementary online resources for further study of the topics. Within each lesson plan there are many stand-alone activities that are easily adapted for use at home.

• Humane Education Resource Guide for K-5 grades, offering lessons with all of the above supplemental materials that focus on animal welfare and protection topics. Youth learn about wild animals and their natural habitats, problems facing companion animals and how to care for them humanely, and lessons that shine light on the often under-appreciated qualities of farm animals. This guide features lots of simple and fun art and craft projects for kids who love animals and want to learn more about them.

• Farm Animal Guide, offers an introduction to the social, emotional, and daily lives of farm animals for early learners, supporting literacy and core SEL skills through engaging stories and activities about these complex animals.

• Kindness for All, A pre-k curriculum designed in collaboration with HeadStart programs in the Los Angeles area serving low-income and ELL students.

• TeachClimate.org Toolkit, A collaboration between HEART and Earth Charter Indiana that offers a curated list of high-quality, user-friendly lessons, units, activities, videos, and more to assist educators and parents in teaching about climate issues.

• Every Day Circles, A set of daily circle-time activity cards that incorporate restorative practices, anti-bias education, social and emotional learning activities, and meaningful content on critical world issues in an accessible and adaptable format. Sample cards can be viewed and downloaded at this link: https://teachheart.org/everydaycircles/.

• Interactive lessons platformed on Nearpod, a large digital classroom site, that feature animal protection, social justice, and environmental conservation topics. These digital lessons are great for independent, self-paced learning. Each lesson asks students to draw, write, watch videos, and answer mini-quizzes as they move through each lesson, and provide vocabulary lists and links for further research on the topics.

• A library of webinars designed for both traditional and non-traditional educators, that offer guidance and teaching tips for using our resources and exploring humane topics in general. These can be really helpful in providing some background and specific ideas for creating engaging learning experiences on a wide range of topics.

• A comprehensive book list of inspiring and engaging literature and non-fiction writing for youth of all ages that tackle human rights, environmental ethics, and animal welfare issues. Many of these titles are available as audio books or videos on YouTube, or as ebooks that can be digitally downloaded.

You can follow HEART and stay informed of new initiatives and resources at (put in all the social media links)