Based in Calgary, Alberta, Mike Bingley is the director of education at Canadian Wildlife Federation (CWF). Under his leadership, CWF has engaged 1.1 million Canadians of all ages and backgrounds through eight different education programs. Two of these programs, WILD Outside (WO) and The Canadian Conservation Corps (CCC), help youth and young adults develop a passion for service, awareness of the natural environment and appreciation for wildlife through conservation volunteering. Nearly 3,500 youth and young adults have participated in these programs since 2016, contributing more than 800,000 hours of conservation-based volunteer service in their communities across Canada. 

To ensure that all young Canadians in these programs have safe, welcoming, culturally relevant access to outdoor spaces, Bingley also created Participant Support Specialist roles to better support Indigenous participants, as well as those who have physical disabilities. As a result, more than half of CWF’s education program participants identify as Black, Indigenous, a person of color, a person with a disability, a newcomer to Canada, LGBTQ2S+ and/or a resident of a remote or rural community. 

Bingley also launched the CWF’s WILD Generations Gardening Club, which facilitates intergenerational knowledge-sharing through volunteer opportunities for seniors and youth. Participants plan and build community gardens, thereby increasing pollinator-friendly habitats, promoting social inclusion and cultivating the next generation of environmental stewards!

Under Bingley’s direction, CWF has received the following program awards: Saskatoon Open Door Society Newcomer Youth Recruitment Award, Canadian Museum of Nature Nature Inspiration Award, The Alberta Emerald Award, the RCE Saskatchewan Education for Sustainable Development Recognition Award and the City of Calgary Environmental Achievement Award. Bingley has also been honored with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal for his service to connect Canadians with Nature.

Kiran Bir Sethi is an Indian designer, education reformer and social entrepreneur. After graduating from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India, in 1989, Sethi successfully ran her own graphic design firm for over a decade, work that continues to inform her current endeavors. In 2007, she founded A Protagonist in Every Child (aProCh) as a spontaneous and simple response to the need to better connect children with nature and make Ahmedabad a more child-friendly city. The initiative includes Parents of the Park, which aims to connect children and parents to urban ecology and parks, providing an environment that fosters equity, fun and creativity in nature — and builds appreciation of green spaces. In 2023, aProCh was awarded the ‘Right to Play’ award by the International Play Association and has impacted over 1,000,000 children in 12 Indian cities. Studies have shown that the program has critical benefits for children, like increased self-confidence, creativity, decision-making, teamwork, bonding with peers and respect for others. 

Sethi is the founder of The Riverside School, which applies design processes to enable transformative student learning experiences. In 2023, The Riverside School won “World’s Best School for Innovation” by T4 Education. Sethi also launched Design For Change (DFC), which uses a simple 4-step design framework – feel, imagine, do, share – to cultivate an “I can” mindset in children. Today, DFC is active in more than 70 countries, impacting over 2.2 million children. Sethi’s book “Every Child Can,” published in 2023, makes a compelling and inspiring case for taking a design-led approach to empowering and educating our children.

For her outstanding contributions, Sethi has won several awards: The Earth Prize, The Rockefeller Innovation Award, The Lego Reimagine Learning Challenge, Light of Freedom, The Lexus Design Award and more. She is a Yidan and Ashoka fellow.

Since 2009, Phil Ginsburg has been the general manager of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department (SFRPD) in Northern California, leading the organization through innovative efforts that increase equity and access to public recreation and nature. Under his leadership, San Francisco became the first city in the United States where 100 percent of residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park. 

Among many initiatives, Ginsburg led SFRPD in increasing nature opportunities and programming in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point (BVHP) community. SFRPD operates the EcoCenter at Heron’s Head Park, which offers free educational and recreational programming to BVHP families and youth, including a youth stewardship program, fishing, birdwatching and a nature-based camp. Ginsburg is also the founder and executive co-chair of the Children & Nature Collaborative, which partnered with SFRPD and KABOOM! to create an outdoor Nature Exploration Area at the EcoCenter. Winner of UNICEF’s 2021 Cities Inspires Award, the space encourages children to play in nature, climbing on repurposed stumps, hiding in a tree cave or relaxing on a rope bridge. 

In 2021 SFRPD launched the India Basin Project with the help of the community and local and national partners, planning to transform a former shoreline brownfield into a waterfront park. The project will give children, families and individuals living in nearby public and affordable housing access to new shoreline trails, restored tidal landscape and an abundance of recreation. In anticipation of the park’s opening, SFRPD is partnering with the YMCA of San Francisco to provide free swimming classes and ensure every BVHP child is comfortable and confident in the water. 

Ginsburg also serves on the Children & Nature Network Board. Learn more.

Rue Mapp is an outdoor fashion designer, author and the founder and CEO of Outdoor Afro, a national not-for-profit organization that celebrates and inspires Black connections and leadership in nature. Mapp initially launched Outdoor Afro as a blog in 2009, aiming to shift the visual representation and narrative of Black people in nature. Fifteen years later, Mapp has led Outdoor Afro in building a volunteer-led network of more than 60,000 community participants in 60 cities across the United States. The organization hosts its annual Outdoor Afro Leadership Training with more than 100 volunteers annually, educating on risk management, trip planning basics, conservation ethics and effective social media storytelling. Outdoor Afro volunteers then go on to guide more than 1,200-plus nature adventures in their communities, from foraging to skiing and kayaking to gardening. 

In 2019, Outdoor Afro launched the Making Waves program in response to the high number of Black children who drown each year, which is linked to the historic prohibition of Black access to beaches and public pools. Outdoor Afro partners with U.S. swim providers to fund swimming classes with the aim of helping Black children and families not only learn a life-saving skill but also develop a positive relationship with water.

Mapp is the author of “Nature Swagger: Stories and Visions of Black Joy in the Outdoors” (Chronicle Books, 2022). She is also a National Geographic 2019 Fellow, Heinz Awards Honoree and National Wildlife Federation Communication Award recipient, and her work has been featured on “Good Morning America,” National Public Radio, NBC’s “TODAY” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” 

Learn more about Rue Mapp and her work in this Finding Nature News article. 

Jacob Rodenburg is the executive director of Camp Kawartha, a nonprofit organization in Ontario, Canada, that connects children to nature — inspiring youth to become agents of change. The organization hosts day and overnight camps for children ages 4 to 17. Since 1985, the organization has also offered outdoor and environmental education programs for K-12 students, including environmental science and arts, outdoor living skills and adventure learning. 

Rodenburg led the effort to build Camp Kawartha’s Environment Centre, which employs innovative green architecture, like straw-bale construction, solar panels, carbon-absorbing materials and rainwater collection. Since opening, the Centre has delivered nature-based programming to over 60,000 people. With pollinator gardens, a living roof, nature playscapes, a permaculture garden and more, the Centre demonstrates how nature and human communities might better support each other in co-existence. 

Over the past seven years, Rodenburg spearheaded the creation of a road map to foster community-based stewardship for all ages. The “Pathway to Stewardship and Kinship” offers simple, age-linked “landmark” activities that grow with children, inspiring them to take positive environmental action at each stage of their development. The innovative project has involved more than 50 organizations and recorded over 62,000 landmarks.

Rodenburg is the author of The Book of Nature Connection and is the co-author of The Big Book of Nature Activities. He is the recipient of the Otonabee Conservation Award, the Canadian Network for Environmental Education & Communication Outstanding Educator Award, the Stony Lake Environmental Award, the Award for Leadership in Environmental Education by the Ontario Society of Environmental Educators, and the Richards Education Award for Excellence in Natural History Education.

Atiya Wells is the founder and executive director of Backyard Basecamp, a nonprofit that provides natural history and wilderness training, summer camps and wellness walks to communities in Baltimore, Maryland. In 2017, Wells came across a neglected and largely wooded 10-acre property in her neighborhood in Northeast Baltimore. Working with a coalition of neighbors, nonprofits, farmers and educators, as well as the National Park Service, she launched a land reclamation project. The goal was to create a park that would give local communities of color access to environmental education, nature play and gardening within walking distance of their homes — and the opportunity to reclaim outdoor spaces where they have not traditionally felt welcome. 

Today, that once vacant land is called Bliss Meadows. It’s home to a vegetable garden, a pond, fruit and nut orchards, goats, honey bees — and seven acres of wooded nature trails for outdoor play and exploration. As a project of Backyard Basecamp, the meadow provides a place for children and families to get to know their local ecosystem and wildlife, to grow food and contribute to a sustainable resource right in their neighborhood. Additionally, the meadow sells harvested farm goods and produce back to the community through their Farm Store. 

Backyard Basecamp also offers additional public programming, including: an annual Summer Camp, which has served Baltimore youth for over three years; a paid environmental workforce development program for Black, Indigenous and youth of color in Baltimore; and an outdoor adventure club for adults. 

In 2022, Wells was the first recipient of the Richard Louv Prize for Innovation in Nature Connection. Learn more.

As director of the Child Development Laboratory School (CDLS) at the University of Minnesota (UMN), Sheila Williams Ridge is a passionate advocate for nature-based play in early childhood education and the lasting developmental benefits of connecting children and nature. CDLS is a community of learners, providing both training and research opportunities for early childhood education teaching candidates — and a vibrant learning environment for children ages 3 months to 5 years old. 

Through her work, Williams Ridge mentors future teachers in early childhood and nature-based learning, providing a foundation for practice, including instruction in such topics as, “Nature-based Learning in Early Childhood,” “A Sense of Wonder” and “Equity and Inclusion in the Outdoors.” In partnership with the UMN American Indian Studies Department, Williams Ridge also led the effort to develop a Dakota language immersion classroom at CDLS, which aims to return the language to Dakota children through play, outdoor exploration and loving interactions.

Williams Ridge has been an active and critical leader in shaping the field of nature-based learning outside of CDLS. She has been a part of the annual Natural Start Alliance Conference, building programming that advances the quality and scale of nature-based learning in early childhood education for over ten years. As a member of Environmental Kinship International, Teach Outdoors Minnesota, Minnesota Early Childhood Outdoors, Minneapolis Nature Preschool, Monarch Joint Venture, Dodge Nature Center and many other organizations, Williams Ridge has brought both mentorship and evidence-based best practices to a broad range of early childhood educators by hosting webinars and workshops, and by publishing toolkits and guides. 

Williams Ridge is also the co-author of “Nature-Based Learning for Young Children: Anytime, Anywhere, on Any Budget” (Redleaf Press, 2018), which provides everything from sample play-based lesson plans to health and safety guidance for early childhood educators. 

Shana Wills is the executive director of Refugee Education & Adventure Challenge (REACH) in Chicago, Illinois. Wills founded REACH in 2016, following an appeal from the local refugee community to help redirect their children from academic failure, bullying, social isolation and gang violence. Through a blend of academic support, leadership training and social-emotional learning, REACH empowers refugee and asylum-seeking youth during their critical adjustment and growth phases.

REACH’s innovative approach combines experiential learning, positive youth development and ecotherapy to dismantle social, economic and place-based barriers. It aims to cultivate “planetary citizens” by deeply embedding the principles of eco-pedagogy — a “pedagogy of hope” — into its curriculum and staff development programs, fostering a global perspective and environmental stewardship. 

Since its founding, REACH has engaged more than 600 refugee youth and families from 35 countries in interdisciplinary interventions that rely on the lived experiences and expert knowledge of REACH staff, peer mentors, participating families, volunteers and various field experts in the Chicagoland area. Contextual outdoor learning programs for refugee youth and their families help build connections, enhance knowledge, promote leadership and improve well-being, while instilling a sense of responsibility for public lands.

REACH’s community-driven, interdisciplinary initiatives have been highlighted in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ social media posts, Outside Magazine, Free Forest School, and the Wednesday Journal, as well as in BBC Wildlife Magazine, Granite Gear’s Hot Minute, and CBS Mornings with Gayle King. 

In addition to her role at REACH, Wills consults independently for both local and international grassroots refugee-led organizations and serves as a part-time faculty member at DePaul University. Her extensive experience includes directing a major resettlement agency, managing a high school-based international newcomer center in Chicago, leading an international child trafficking protection agency and founding a school for displaced children in Angola, Africa.

In 2010, Dr. Robert Zarr, MD, MPH, listened to Richard Louv, “Last Child in the Woods” author and Children & Nature Network co-founder, deliver his first speech on nature-deficit disorder at an annual meeting of the Association of American Pediatricians. Stunned by the wealth of evidence linking time in nature to improved health outcomes for chronic diseases — many of which disproportionately affect children living in poverty — Dr. Zarr returned to Washington, DC, to begin the work that would shape the trajectory of his career. 

Today, Dr. Zarr is the founder and medical director of Park Rx America (PRA), a nonprofit organization that encourages pediatricians and other healthcare professionals to issue nature prescriptions to their patients during routine clinic visits. PRA provides the research and tools needed to help healthcare workers write effective nature prescriptions, such as resources that explain how to set balanced goals or that provide a range of ideas for getting outdoors. 

In the clinic setting, Dr. Zarr’s approach to writing nature prescriptions centers the child and family. Dr. Zarr developed the prescription outline to promote conversation between the child and the doctor, talking through the child’s barriers to and preferences for spending time outside, like safety, comfort, interests and schedules, as well as the health benefits of different activities. The aim is to set realistic, customized goals that meet the individual child’s need, willingness and ability to spend time outside.

Since 2019, more than 1,350 healthcare professionals across the United State have joined PRA. Collectively, they have issued nearly 4,500 nature prescriptions.

Learn more about PRA and Dr. Robert Zarr’s innovative work and research in this Finding Nature News article.