People

I am a college student studying elementary education

I have been involved in environmental education for about three years now, and I have never felt more connected to or passionate about a career path. I found the Adventure Education program at Plymouth State University in 2023, which has helped me with the path of figuring out what I wanted to do, who I am, and who I want to become. Over the past few years, I have found that environmental education has given me a direction that feels genuinely meaningful to me.

I have previous experience in Scouts, where I developed many of the outdoor skills, along with my values regarding conservation. Though scouts have helped me build a foundation, my love for nature came from my desire to connect with my surroundings throughout my childhood and teenage years. I have always enjoyed being outside, exploring, and learning about the world around me. 

Baseball has also been a major part of my life. Spending so much time competing, playing, and bettering myself for a specific goal has taught me a lot about perseverance, failure, and cultivating a positive environment. In a lot of ways, both baseball and the outdoors have helped me figure out who I am and what is important to me. 

Throughout the hardest times in my life, I have always turned to nature as a source of mental, physical, and social healing. Whether this desire to emerge myself in nature was conscious or not, it's no question that I value my connection to nature deeply. One of the most effective ways I have found to deepen this connection is through learning more about the natural world, understanding how we can preserve it, and creating opportunities for other people to experience it as well.

Educating others on the environment and conservation has become a huge passion of mine. I love being able to take something I am excited about and share it with others, whether that's through teaching outdoor skills, expeditions, ecological education, or simply giving someone an opportunity to experience nature in a way they may not have previously.

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.

Short in stature, but long in my love of learning. My goal is to be a lifelong learner, a wandering wonderer, and a force for good in my personal and professional life. My life was shaped by a childhood of relocations which resulted in my relying on books as a source of stability. Thus began my steady relationship with books of all kinds which I obtained in school and local public libraries. This habit became a career as I parlayed that passion for knowledge into education. The lessons learned during pursuit and my attainment of a Masters degree in Montessori Education positively shaped my adult life as a parent, and as an educator. The philosophy of Montessori matched my own thoughts about the care of self, care of others, and care of the world. These principles of kindness, the ethical treatment of all living things, my love of nature, the power of knowledge, and the importance of personal responsibility guide the way I live life and continues to influence my career path.

I'm an associate professor at NC State studying children & nature and environmental education. I'm interested how being outside can provide benefits for children, as well as how youth can create positive change in their communities. I have a strong interest in partnering with EE organizations for evaluation, as well as research around community-based environmental learning.