We’re Pando.
We make it easy for young people to do something.
To take on impossible challenges.
And build a more sustainable, just, and democratic future for the 10 million people who call LA home.
Pando is the education collaborative that turns classrooms into accelerators of project-based civic engagement — for sustainability in the broadest sense.
Pando names the methodology and movement that helps young people to find the courage, experience, and resourcefulness to not just talk about what must be done — but to imagine, plan, and create real projects that build and rebuild a more sustainable, just, and democratic world.
Our flagship program, Pando Days, is the higher-education program that has been adopted by more than 25 Southland colleges and universities. It organizes and supports young people and their instructors to directly take on LA County’s sustainability and resiliency goals: fire, water, climate, shelter, transportation, food, waste, biodiversity, wellness, jobs, civic participation, and justice. We then help them see their projects get put to work in actual neighborhood communities, through entrepreneurial know-how and can-do spirit.
Pando has a whole suite of programs for young people – not just higher ed — including K-12, faith communities, and for those who’ve dropped-out. Our programs mesh with any curricula.
Our secret sauce.
The most powerful force that we unleash is the imagination and determination of young people. We know how to motivate and organize them with our proven model and methodology to imagine solutions, plan projects, and actually get stuff done for their communities.
Our focus is their futures.
We give young people the inspiration and enthusiasm needed to make courageous things happen. People, knowledge, funding, skills, and innovation are all part of our Pando toolkit.
Challenge-based education that matters.
We’re guided in our work by the sustainability and resiliency plan adopted by LA County leaders, so the challenges addressed by the real-world projects young people develop align with the highest strategic priorities of the region.
Our most important thing is connections.
We’re connecting more than 25 colleges and universities across Los Angeles for a single purpose: to equip young people with the enthusiasm and resources to create a better future than the one we’re leaving them. We’re connecting them to the businesses, utilities, public agencies, government officials, civic organizations, and community leaders who can help.
And we’re doing it in ways that make people wonder why they were all never connected before.
Think of us as The Pando School.
All our work focuses on helping young people accomplish what seems can’t be done — building a sustainable future out of inherited structures and ashes, starting in Los Angeles, and starting now.
We’re the spearhead of a methodology and a movement that returns civic engagement to the heart of education and puts it to work on the street. Our approach begins with virtually any subject matter, tailors the learning experience to meet a local community challenge, and delivers project-based solutions that live in the world with measurable impact.
The difference between education influenced by The Pando School and standard educational approaches is the difference between the actual work of building a more sustainable and resilient world, one neighborhood at a time, and reading about it.
Pando.
Pando Populus, Inc. is a non-profit education collaborative focused on the civic engagement of young people that cultivates actual, community-based projects that address the goals of LA County’s plan for sustainability and resilience, broadly conceived.
Our funny name.
We’re named after the one-tree aspen forest in south-central Utah, the largest organism on Earth – Pando. Made up of over 47,000 trunks and millions of leaves, all connected through one root system.
It’s a particularly good metaphor for our interconnected lives, challenges, and solutions — and a particularly good name for an organization that’s passionately committed to connecting everyone to get positive work done.
Pando Days 2024-’25
Our growing successes
Pando Days
Series
Our flagship program in higher education unites instructors across the County to tackle the toughest of our sustainability issues.
Magenta House
Series
Our youth program empowers kids to create the water- and power-conscious future we all need and desire.
Camp Pando
Camp Pando is for young people reentering from juvenile detention, foster care, and dropping out of school and focuses them on creative projects that help meet Southland challenges.
Pando Accelerator
Pando’s project accelerator supports project R&D, meetings, and events on a campus with a long history of radical commitment.
Blog Posts
International Day for Biodiversity and the Convention on Biological Diversity
Mark VanderSchaaf unpacks international efforts to celebrate and protect biodiversity and the USA’s noted absence from many.
You can help Biophilia Treehouse deepen its root
The Biophilia Treehouse looks to improve its prototype structure at the Sisters of Social Service compound in Encino, CA.
How Pando Supports LA’s Biodiversity
Mark VanderSchaaf outlines the history of the term biodiversity and how it now exercises influence on future urban planning.
John Cobb changed my life
Inspired from a sermon he gave, Ed Bacon writes on the life and legacy of John Cobb.