Big Red Earth

Our mission is to help networks of schools and communities predict and take the next actions that will increase social, economic and environmental wellbeing - for themselves, others and the planet.

Since 2016 we have developed and published free educational resources on a Creative Commons license through 100% in-kind support. In 2024 we finalized the migration of these resources to OpenEvo, allowing Global ESD to relaunch as an implementation partner.

Our primary focus is supporting the development of school-based community science labs and international networking between them. Community science is a broad term for democratic approaches to improving a wide range of aims, including academic learning and human and community development. When practiced as an open science, it can also inform improvement and learning in peer communities (and vice versa).

School-based Community Science Labs are interdisciplinary teams working to practice community science. By pairing what matters to the community with the agency, skills and understandings they need to achieve it, community science labs are direction generating.

Why the name Big Red Earth?

We are currently incorporated under the name Big Red Earth, a nod to our initial focus on international networking to support education for sustainable development in Madagascar under cofounders Dustin Eirdosh and Susan Hanisch. In 2017, in association with the University of Leipzig (Germany), Dustin and Susi began developing an international teacher training module under the name Global ESD. These activities have continued under their leadership with additional support from the Max Planck Institute, leading to the formation of OpenEvo.

Today, OpenEvo will continue to centrally coordinate all curricular resources and design concepts developed to date, while Global ESD works to partner with schools and communities to implement OpenEvo resources

In the near future Big Red Earth will adopt Global ESD as the formal legal name of the organization.