Member Spotlight

At Child's Play Family Child Care in Connecticut, children and adults are invited into an outdoor play and learning space that's Nature Explore certified and created to nurture both children and adults.

Now Nature School was founded on the idea that children learn best when nature is one of their teachers. Located in Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, the curriculum highlights the diversity and cultural richness of the school’s community and natural environment.

In our November Member Spotlight, get familiar with the Child Development Lab School at UM, a fantastic program that incorporates nature-based learning and sustainability and helps prepare future educators to be the best they can be!

Honey Hilliard is the author and illustrator of the book Looking for Butterflies, a color-along poetic narrative celebrating nature, art, and perseverance.

Peter Dargatz is a nature kindergarten teacher at Woodside Elementary, a public school in Sussex, Wisconsin

Educating Children Outdoors (ECO) is a nature immersion program developed by the North Branch Nature Center and designed for students in preschool up to 6th grade. Founded in 2009, the program has impacted more than a dozen public schools, over 100 educators, and many more students. In our May Member Spotlight, Amy Butler shares how ECO has evolved over the last 10 years.

Get to know Natural Start member, the Outdoor Early Learning Alliance of Oregon (OELAO), an advocacy group for outdoor preschool licensing in Oregon.

Mountain Village Charter Schools is America's first nature-based and Montessori public elementary school, and one of the first schools to bring nature-based education to the elementary levels.

Nature Nuts runs a year-round Forest School for young children in Maple Valley, WA. The school has recently been accredited in the Cedarsong Way Teaching Methodology. We asked the school's Lead Instructor, Brenda Running, to tell us more about it.

Get to know White Pine Programs, a nonprofit organization in Maine that connects children and adults to nature, beginning at age 4.

Taking to heart Rachel Carson's The Sense of Wonder, the teachers of Live & Learn journey daily with children to enjoy and explore the pleasures of walking in a puddle or stream, digging for salamanders, and learning to appreciate what nature has to teach, and why this matters.

In a remote fishing hub in Alaska, Sarah Phillips created an unconventional preschool where children spend long hours outdoors in grand spaces.