Forest Educator with Ricardo Sierra | A Podcast for Revolutionary Conversations about Nature-Based Education

I always knew when I was in an 'initiatory experience', because my peaceful, stable, predictable life would suddenly be turned upside down. It is not a pleasant experience, generally, and I would be forced to let go, grow, learn, and expand.  Sometimes, the initiation started due to a relationship, or sometimes, community pressures. Other times, it happened more physically, with pressure or forces...

There are lots of times when we as educators face the task of creating a positive nature experience with less than ideal situations.  Running forest school sessions in urban schools near a football pitch, or an abandoned lot is not always what we were thinking we were getting into when we envisioned being nature educators or went through our training! In this episode, David Fisher and I explore so...

When I created the Hawk Circle Wilderness Camp back in 1989, I started with a goal to offer something 'real' to students & campers.  I began to scour my knowledge and imagination of how our ancestors were connected to the land in visceral, intrinsic ways, from the moment of birth to their very end of life.   I sought to add these elements, or threads of understanding, one strand a time, in a way t...

There are a lot of 'ingredients' in most forest educator programs that make up the bulk of the experiences.  Crafts. Skills. Games.  Challenges.  Free Play.  Exploration. (and more). Viewed as a recipe, they would be the big items in whatever dish you're making.  They'd take up a lot of space in the pot or pan, and they would get the most attention. But there are also the smaller ingredients in th...

The one question I get asked about most is about program design, curriculum and activities for older children, teens and young adults. There are lots of good ideas and content out there that covers nature/science combos, or nature/language arts or nature/creative arts, and those are awesome. In this episode, I share some of the things I've learned over the more than three decades of working with y...

It was through Tom Brown Jr and his Tracker School that I came to meet John.  It was 1984, on a farm in western New Jersey, and he was an instructor at the school, and spending seven days with him and the rest of the staff and Tom changed the direction of my life in a radical way. John was pulled to New Mexico in 1986, where he founded The Tracking Project, and began running rites of passage camps...

It came out of nowhere, right as hundreds of Forest School Leaders were preparing for the Autumn semester:   An opinion piece in The Guardian ominously titled "I'm All For the Concept of Forest School, Just Not the Kind I Pulled My Kids Out Of." by Emma Brockes. It's just six paragraphs of cynical observations around schools, camps, forest schools and misunderstanding, but it packs a lot of critic...

The task of communicating the value and benefits of what we do as nature based educators is vital to the long and short term success of our mission/vision, so 'marketing' is one of the hats we wear as part of our leadership roles.  But often, we are SO reluctant and hesitant to promote ourselves, and talk about it, and I've seen a LOT of people get really uncomfortable taking the leap into even th...

This episode explores the phenomenon that often occurs when we work with people in nature, where there is a moment of touching the divine, or the light.  We also tackle the flip side, where someone in our care goes down, to the rich, warm darkness, where things get raw and primal.    I share about why I find the duality principle both lazy and inadequate as a metaphor, and how its oversimplificati...

The world of medicine and academia seems to run on a different timeline than the modern world. Changes take time to process, evaluate, become revised and eventually, approved for integration into the working model for treatment or training.  There are good reasons for this process, because acting too quickly can create a lot of confusion, waste of money and time and generally degrade the public op...

This episode is for nature educators AND Parents, Grandparents, Teachers, Schools and Organizations, as it dives into the reasons why professional Nature Education Programs are priced the way they are.   I present some ideas and details that can promote understanding moving forward, and share some ways that schools, parents, grandparents and organizations can save $ in some cases. This is a great...

Reuben Piet joins the Forest Educator from Cape Town as a singer, songwriter, musician and transformational nature leader.  He draws upon his ancestral roots to create powerful experiences for people of all ages, awakening an ancient remembering of who we are, and why we are here.  South Africa, like most of Africa, is a melting pot of diversity, cultures, languages and perspectives, and Reuben sh...

I don't think it's a stretch to say that Tom Brown Jr leaves quite a 'wake' in his passing.  He's taught thousands of students, both through his books and Tracker School, and he's been a 'force of nature' in these past five decades.   He's been a mentor, a guide, a father figure to many whose fathers were absent, and he won't ever fully know the depth of his presence or impact had on those who lea...

When I first started learning wilderness skills and discovering wild foods, my mentors taught and also modeled a deep sense of gratitude to these living beings that we used every day.  I didn't know how to do it the 'right way', but I made every attempt to show my appreciation, b0th out loud and in my head.  What I wasn't prepared for was the feeling that I had from THEM, which was both intuitive...

If you want to add depth and meaning to your relationship to the natural world, a little research, study and discovery of our natural history, geography, cultural history and flora & fauna that surrounds us!  It's all about understanding different unique aspects of our small corner of the world, and how it's special, just like our students and ourselves.     Forest Educator Bonus Content Page: htt...

If you could learn or study anything, what would you choose? If you had ample time, space and a little support, could you learn and grow as a person? Can you develop your own style of creativity, or relationship to the discovery process? These are the questions that the Walden Project explores, with a small group of teens who take a school year away from 'regular' school, get college credit, get o...

If you haven't been in a situation where something happens that is unexpected, then congratulations!  You probably have an amazing overworked program director who is really NAILING IT as far as logistics, details, staff training, student screening and daily monitoring of everything in your program!  Enjoy it while it lasts.  Live the dream! If, on the other hand, you know what it's like when thing...

To many (most?) people in our current culture, nature is a literal 'wall of green' that contains plants, trees, vines, bushes and shrubs, all interwoven in a way that is virtually indistinguishable from each other.    It can seem impenetrable, and overwhelming, even, to begin to make sense of it.   If you are thinking of actually eating some of these wild foods, or using them medicinally, the stre...

I'm pretty sure we could all benefit from reducing the frenetic pace that seems to go hand in hand with our modern culture. It's a great topic, but it's not what I'm describing in this episode!  Instead, I've spent most of my time on two of the most important tools in my 'nature awareness' toolkit that I know.  They are based in mindfulness practices that have helped me immensely in multiple ways...

Life in the Great White North can be cold and hard at times, but that makes the warmer seasons all the sweeter, from Maple Syrup Season to Sumac Gathering and so much more.  The power of nature is reflected in daily life, and living close helps us see the metaphors and parallels that we echo in our own human cultural patterns. Join Chris Gilmour and I as we explore forest educator training, youth...

It was early August, in Harlemville New York.  It was a six week immersion into the natural world, in one of my first 'wilderness skills learning intensives', with just a few tools, a blanket and a desire to see the world from a different perspective. This episode is a recounting of some of my adventures with wildlife, and why I still can't stand roasted apples.    Thank you to the listeners who h...

In the olden days, before the internet, when you ran a workshop or a skills class or wild foods program, you could usually skip the student evaluation forms and questionnaires.  Participants just 'got the experience' and that was the deal.  There wasn't any trolling, or review bombing, because there were no online reviews.  You might get a letter, if people felt a certain way about your offering,...

It's one thing to have a 'vision' or idea that is inspiring and exciting and full of hope and promise.  It's also a WHOLE other thing to actually bring it into the real world, grounded and fully expressed and achieving outcomes. When we take that leap into the unknown, it's scary, risky, stressful and even wonderful; a lot of intense emotions all rolled into a kaleidoscope blender that most of the...

There are literally piles of research about the benefits of contact with nature for human beings, and most of the time, we think of 'forest experiences' primarily for children.  Monica Eastway shares her work with people who are in their 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's, and why nature is vital for this segment of our community.   She shares stories of how nature experiences improve the quality of life f...

Ever since I was a kid I was always fascinated by the concept of 'time'.    I know I am not alone, because it's a pretty popular theme over the last four decades or so.  Madeline L'Engle's Wrinkle In Time was one of my first steps into a different world.  The time differences in the world of Narnia was pretty interesting!  Then came the wildly unexpected Time Bandits and the fun of Back to the Fut...