The Regeneration Lab

What if nature-based learning could help students feel more connected, to place, to one another, and to themselves? In this conversation, Nicole Kras, Tara Bahl, Karen Williams and Samuel Finesurrey share how an interdisciplinary community at Guttman Community College is bringing learning beyond the classroom and into New York City’s green spaces. From mindfulness, urban farming and beekeeping to...

What if nature connection is less about visiting nature and more about building a relationship over time? In this conversation, Miles Holmes explores deep nature connection through sit spots, sensory awareness, mentoring and Indigenous perspectives. We discuss how repeated encounters with place can grow from familiarity into kinship, how nature can support wellbeing and meaning-making, and why con...

What if nature-based pedagogy could change not only what students know, but how they relate to the world? In this conversation, Katinka Quintelier and Karen Verduijn explore forest bathing, EcoWalks and nature-based learning in business education. From sensory practices and post-anthropocentric entrepreneurship to student resistance, collective experimentation and Plato’s Garden, we discuss how em...

What if education helped us remember that we are already nature? In this conversation, Lian Kaspar explores relational, embodied and nature-inclusive learning through sit spots, outdoor immersion, play, emotional awareness and reflection. We discuss how students can move from initial resistance into slower, more connected ways of learning, and why academic education should make room for the whole...

What changes when students are invited not only to learn about nature, but to notice, question and relate to it? In this conversation, Alette Los, Jetske de Boer and Sandra van der Wielen explore nature-inclusive teacher education through place-based observation, sensory experience, dialogue and experimentation. From adopting a place and hunting for species to the damselfly as a metaphor for trans...

What if connecting with nature became a normal part of how we learn and care for ourselves? In this conversation, Waminda Parker explores nature connection as an embodied practice for wellbeing, self-regulation and meaningful learning. From moving beyond cognitive knowledge to noticing, relating and reflecting, we discuss NatureFix’s approach to helping people engage more deeply with everyday gree...

What if creativity and learning do not begin with ideas, but emerge through relationships? In this conversation, Jason Frasca and Iain Kerr explore creativity as a more-than-human, ecological process shaped by people, materials, tools and environments. From embodied experimentation and the spaghetti game to co-emergence, uncertainty and “blocking” familiar assumptions, we discuss how education can...

What if transformative learning grew through relationships rather than instruction? In this conversation, Ruth Förster explores embodied, nature-connected approaches to learning, leadership and change. From sensory awareness and threshold walks to safe-enough spaces, storytelling and reflection, we discuss how transformative learning can engage the whole person. Ruth also reflects on bringing thes...

What happens when students step out of everyday culture and into shared experience outdoors? In this conversation, Tom Potter reflects on decades of experiential outdoor education, from emotional and philosophical learning to student-led expeditions, reflection and re-entry. We explore how nature can help people peel back social layers, build trust, take responsibility and discover capacities they...

What if education helped us grow through connection, reciprocity and place? In this conversation, Richard Owens explores regenerative learning, systems awareness and the conditions that help people and communities thrive. From river red gums and permaculture to regenerative futures, Indigenous knowledge and place-based learning, we discuss how education can reconnect self, others and the living wo...

What if education began with the places we already love? In this conversation, Karin Wilterdink Molenaar explores nature-connected learning through geography, outdoor education and storytelling. From inviting students to bring photographs of their favourite places to using landscapes as living classrooms, we discuss how emotional connection can deepen curiosity, well-being and care for the Earth....

What changes when architecture begins designing for more than humans? In this conversation, Wesley Massij explores nature-inclusive design, biodiversity and the possibilities of bringing other species into architectural education. From seeing buildings as shared habitats to asking students to design from the perspective of birds, bats and insects, we discuss how nature can become a normal part of...

What happens when academic learning moves outdoors for more than a few hours? In this conversation, Koen Arts explores outdoor relational education and the possibilities of reconnecting embodied, emotional and cognitive ways of learning. From everyday encounters with nature to multi-day experiences involving fire-making, shelter-building and living closely with the land, we discuss what sustained...

What if education made room for different rhythms of learning? In this conversation, Nanda Vrielink explores outdoor education, nature connectedness and the possibilities of learning with the whole person. From the changing seasons and nature intelligence to sit spots, curiosity and learning beyond the classroom, we discuss how students can reconnect knowledge with experience, values and the livin...

What if business education challenged us to see beyond human interests? In this conversation, Helen Kopnina reflects on biodiversity, environmental ethics and teaching sustainability in business schools. From roleplays that give voice to polar bears and forests to debates, films and student reflections, we explore how playful methods can unsettle anthropocentrism without preaching. Helen also disc...

What if education helped us see relationships rather than isolated subjects? In this conversation, Soumi Duttagupta explores regenerative education, systems thinking and the shift towards a more ecological worldview. From storytelling and place-based inquiry to mapping the hidden consequences of everyday systems, we discuss how learning can help students engage with complexity, interdependence and...

What changes when we learn to notice nature already growing through our cities? In this conversation, Nathalie Baumann reflects on urban ecology, biodiversity and experiential, interdisciplinary education. From pioneer plants breaking through concrete and orchids growing on rooftops to walking through cities with open eyes and ears, we explore how direct encounters can transform what students see...

What if education prepared us not to control complexity, but to move within it? In this conversation, Tobias Luthe explores embodied learning, systemic design and our intrinsic relationship with the more-than-human world. Drawing on decades of teaching, mountain guiding and outdoor practice, we discuss how discomfort and uncertainty can become spaces for growth, why teachers may increasingly becom...

What if education helped us reconnect, regenerate, and disrupt? In this conversation, Arjen Wals explores transformative learning for socio-ecological sustainability, from childhood encounters with nature to social, emotional and outdoor learning in higher education. We discuss playfulness, vulnerability and reciprocity between teachers and learners, alongside the need to challenge systems that ma...

What if education created the conditions for something new to emerge? In this conversation, Michael von Kutzschenbach reflects on nature connectedness, transformative learning and the role of openness in business education. From rain, seeds and cracks where light can enter to Theory U, reflection and Learning 3, we explore how education can move beyond transferring knowledge towards creating space...

What if education began by paying attention to the cracks, in ourselves, our institutions and the systems around us? In this conversation, Bas van den Berg explores regenerative education, nature-inclusive learning and the possibilities of more embodied, relational approaches to higher education. From kintsugi and outdoor Socratic dialogues to presence, calmness and bringing nature into business e...

Episode description What changes when “nature” stops being an abstract idea and becomes a relationship? In this conversation, Ash Brockwell shares how fieldwork, creative practice, Indigenous knowledge and different ways of knowing shape the Encountering Ecosystems module at the London Interdisciplinary School. We explore what it means to meet plants, animals and places as a “who” rather than an “...

What changes when education moves beyond institutional walls and into relationship with the living world? In this conversation, Robbie Nicol reflects on decades of work in outdoor, place-based and environmental education. From “trees that speak” and residential learning to different ways of knowing, activism and communities of practice, we explore how education can become more relational, embodied...

What if education helped us experience ourselves as part of a relational world? In this conversation, Reineke van Tol shares how wild pedagogies, relational outdoor learning and more-than-human perspectives can move education beyond learning about nature towards learning with it. We explore emotional and experiential learning, creating safe spaces for vulnerability, the possibilities and constrain...

What changes when we stop thinking of nature as something outside ourselves and begin connecting as nature? In this conversation, Anaïs Sägesser explores regenerative leadership, embodied and experiential learning, and the creation of safe-enough spaces for transformation. We discuss how sensory engagement and emotional experience can shift meaning perspectives, why ecocentrism matters for busines...