Jean Lomino (She/Her)
Founder & Director
Forest School Teacher Institute
Chattanooga,
Roles at NAAEE
Languages
Interests
Reclaiming the roots of education!
- We believe in the holistic benefits of nature-based learning for children.
- We endeavor to heighten awareness of the importance of understanding child development in learning environments.
- We seek to contribute to sweet communion through networks of support, inspiration, and collaboration.Our methods include: forming authentic relationships, offering LIVE online certification courses, facilitating on-site training, providing affordable consulting services, organizing regional retreats, and helping envision sustainable site development plans.
FSTI training and certification is endorsed by the MSED in Outdoor Teacher Education at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Tennessee.
In 2021, Jean retired as Wauhatchie School Director to further her mission of training others to teach and establish Forest Schools around the globe through the Forest School Teacher Institute, which she founded in 2018. With in-person sessions and the online Zoom program, she has helped train over 1000 forest school teachers and directors from almost every state in the US, Canada, China, Thailand, Korea, Italy, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Costa Rica, Mexico, the Bahamas, and Dominica.
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Dr. Jean Lomino’s varied career includes being a classroom teacher, adjunct professor for the MSED in Outdoor Education at Southern Adventist University and for the Department of Early Childhood Education at East Tennessee State University, and Executive Director of Reflection Riding Arboretum and Nature Center in Chattanooga, TN. In 2015 she co-founded Wauhatchie School, the first forest kindergarten in the state of Tennessee. In 2019 the school expanded to four campuses in Chattanooga with a current combined enrollment of over 200 students and 30 staff.
In 2021, Jean retired as Wauhatchie School Director to further her mission of training others to teach and establish Forest Schools around the globe through the Forest School Teacher Institute, which she founded in 2018. With in-person sessions and the online Zoom program, she has helped train over 1000 forest school teachers and directors from almost every state in the US, Canada, China, Thailand, Korea, Italy, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Costa Rica, Mexico, the Bahamas, and Dominica. She has provided onsite forest school training at schools in Texas, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Florida, Kentucky, and Tennessee. She works closely with a growing number of public schools in the Chattanooga region that have developed forest programs, Kindergarten through Second Grade, that are exemplary models for Public Schools around the US.
For two months Jean worked as a trainer/consultant with the teachers at No Boundaries Forest Kindergarten in Guangzhou, China. She collaborated on research about character strength development in Forest School with Dr. Jiyoun Shin, Vice-Chair of the Korean Forest Kindergarten Association. Jean has presented at numerous conferences and workshops in the US and was a featured speaker at the 2019 International Symposium of Forest Kindergartens in Seoul, South Korea as well as a featured speaker by Zoom in China, Korea, and India. Jean is soon to publish a book about how children in nature inspire adults to regain their childhood skills leading them to a renewed relationship with the earth and all its inhabitants.
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