Resilience in action at the 2025 Nature Everywhere Conference

Dr. Hanaa Hamdi looked out at a sea of over 600 faces. The buzz from early-morning greetings and fresh cups of coffee had faded to a charged stillness. Surveying the room, the systems scientist and Children & Nature Network board chair opened the first day of the 2025 Nature Everywhere Conference with words that would echo throughout the week:

“Hope lives here. So does resistance, and so does vision.”

The Children & Nature Network’s Nature Everywhere Conference is the largest global gathering of advocates for children and nature. Guided by the Twin Cities Advisory Council, Young Adults Advisory Council and Children & Nature Network staff, this year’s conference took place in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, May 13-16. Hosted in Saint Paul’s RiverCentre, it was a joyful time for attendees to reconnect with old friends, form new bonds and ignite collective action. 

Yet the event’s optimism starkly contrasts with the mounting challenges of a changing environment. Just days before the 2025 conference, a record-breaking spring heat wave swept across Minnesota — a local example of increasingly severe weather globally. Amid a rapidly warming climate, growing disconnection from the outdoors, rising eco-anxiety, political unrest and violence in countries around the world, the Nature Everywhere Conference grounded us in something essential: solutions that benefit not only the environment but the health and well-being of young people. As ecologist and educator David Orr once said, “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up” — and conference attendees came ready to work.

Sessions share insights for a nature-filled future 

Nearly 100 conference speakers and presenters offered diverse insights on how to build a more equitable, nature-filled future for children. Whether it was a breakout session like “Equity, Universal Design, and the Future of Public Green Spaces,” a technical “Early Riser” talk on evaluating the impact of nature-based programs, or a participatory workshop demonstrating the power (and joy!) of collective song-writing, there was something for everyone. 

In addition to breakout sessions, the conference provided a rare opportunity for remotely based teams to connect in person. This included a meeting of leaders and practitioners participating in the Green Schoolyards Action Agenda. The group discussed current areas of momentum and barriers to their collective goal: securing access to green schoolyards in all U.S. communities by 2050. Since schoolyards compose a significant portion of publicly managed land in communities, greening these spaces can boost climate resilience by reducing urban heat, managing floodwaters and enhancing wildlife habitat — all while promoting children’s well-being.

On Wednesday, May 14, that focus on well-being continued on the main stage, where a panel of early childhood experts discussed how nature-based play supports children’s healthy development. Panelists included Dr. Leah Austin, President and CEO of the National Black Child Development Institute; Diana Rauner, Ph.D., President of Start Early; Abigail Stewart-Kahn, Managing Director of the Stanford Center on Early Childhood; and Sheila Williams Ridge, Director of the University of Minnesota’s Child Development Laboratory School.

A key takeaway from the discussion? Time spent in nature helps form strong adult-child relationships and benefits brain development, physical development and emotional regulation — with effects that ripple across a lifetime. Panelists also shared examples of successful programs, reflected on the challenges of integrating early childhood nature connection into public policy, and emphasized the importance of intersectional and anti-racist approaches.

While building early connections to nature is essential, sustained support is also crucial — particularly in fostering youth leadership. On Friday, May 16, a lively main stage panel of young professionals discussed the most effective avenues for supporting youth leadership in the movement, identifying leadership development programs, climate education, and opportunities to connect with land and identity as essential pillars. 

“If we don’t really view ourselves as being in relationship with nature, Mother Earth, and the land that we’re on, it’s going to be difficult for us to feel connected and advocate for it as well,” explained panelist B. Rosas, Policy Manager at Climate Generation. 

Rosas was joined by fellow panelists McKaylin Peters, Executive Director of the Chairman’s Office for the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin, and Rachel Metz, Assistant Director of the California Nature Art Museum, as well as moderator Andrea Wagner, Senior Program Associate at Forum for Community Solutions. Together, panelists also emphasized the importance of prioritizing personal well-being. “If you’re being grounded and you’re taking care of yourself emotionally, physically and mentally, you’re able to take care of the youth that you’re guiding,” said Peters. “You’re able to support them emotionally, you’re able to support them physically and you’re able to guide them into finding their role.”

The conference main stage moments highlighted the cyclical nature of resilience: Early childhood connection to nature builds individual resilience. When we continue to nurture that resilience and well-being in youth, it grows into leadership and stewardship — which, in turn, helps heal and nourish the land.

 Indigenous leadership on the main stage

We were honored to welcome several local powerful Indigenous leaders to our main stage, who grounded us in the land, history and future of the Twin Cities. Kachina Yeager, poet and enrolled member of the Bdewakantantuwan Dakota Nation, provided a robust summary of Dakota-settler relations. She reiterated that the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul are the ancestral homelands of the Dakota people, who have cared for the land since time immemorial — despite forced displacement by settlers.

“We are a nation of people spread across great distances, flung into diaspora, and yet we persist. How does one contain all of this — this still simplified version of our story, into a singular moment of land acknowledgement?” asked Yeager. “As you continue this vital work of childhood land access, I urge you to remember how it is that you’ve come to be in a position of privilege to negotiate these accesses.”

Shelley Buck, president of Owámniyomni Okhódayapi, a Dakota-led nonprofit, shared the story of her organization’s work to transform five acres of land at a sacred Dakota site in Bdeóta Othúŋwe (Minneapolis). Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan spoke next, highlighting Buck’s work as a hopeful example of what’s still possible despite today’s challenges.

Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, is currently the country’s highest-ranking Native woman elected to executive office. She urged the work of the children and nature movement forward: “In order to sustain ourselves through this moment in time, we have to continue to connect to nature, connect to each other, and share the value of that with our young people,” said Lt. Gov. Flanagan. “You are holding the value of letting kids be kids, and kids be kids in nature.”

Diane Wilson emphasizes storytelling and food sovereignty

On Thursday, May 15, author and educator Diane Wilson, a member of the Dakota Nation, delivered the conference keynote. 

“No matter how daunting the challenges we face today, we are responsible for teaching our children that plants and animals are co-creating this world with us,” Wilson said. “As we say in Dakota, ‘Mitakuye owas’iƞ’ — ‘we are all related.’ When we care for the earth, when we raise healthy children, returning to these old ways will help us transcend the trauma of the past and create a new, hopeful vision for the future.”

During her keynote, Wilson emphasized children’s innate connection to the natural world, Indigenous principles of kinship and reciprocity, the role of food sovereignty in strengthening children’s relationship with the land, and the power of storytelling. 

“Stories are so important in creating the world we live in and making sure our children are connected to the earth,” said Wilson. “From their earliest days, we are teaching our children the stories that we tell. Through those stories, they are learning who they are, where they come from and what their place is in the world.”

CJ Goulding awarded 2025 Richard Louv Prize

CJ Goulding recognizes the power of storytelling — and in reshaping stories to better nurture our relationship with the world around us. As co-founder and executive director of Boyz N The Wood, Goulding helps Black men challenge the stories — or mental models — surrounding nature connection and mental wellness. On Friday, May 16, he was awarded the fourth annual Richard Louv Prize for Innovation in Nature Connection for his work with Boyz N The Wood, as well as his work mentoring young people outdoors and fostering youth leadership skills.

“It’s about shifting the inner stories people tell themselves and that our systems are built on,” Goulding says. “I hope our work changes the mental model people have around themselves, around nature, around community, around mental health and what it means to be whole.”

As Goulding accepted his award, he reflected on how his own personal experiences with mental health challenges and health crises in his community inspired him to found Boyz N The Wood. “Innovation is often born from crisis, and I’d be a fool to accept this award and smile,” reflected Goulding. “Our ancestors have faced challenges, and we face challenges today.” Yet, he shared that his connection to nature has given him “the tools to heal and the ingredients to create a solution.” 

“These crises I’ve spoken of have borne innovation that supports my community in remembering wholeness through nature,” said Goulding. 

Meeting the moment

As Goulding and countless other leaders demonstrate, resilience is embedded in the children and nature movement. In gathering to share new ideas, form new friendships, celebrate successes and build a collective vision, we embody resilience by growing a stronger network — a “constellation of stars,” as described by Goulding, who, together, form a sum greater than its parts. In the green schoolyards we build and the native seeds that we sow, we strengthen ecological resilience and sustainability on a warming planet. And in the work of every advocate for children and nature, whether an expert in early childhood education, a policymaker or a local high school student, we see resilience in their hopeful efforts, despite the obstacles.

When the doors of the Saint Paul RiverCentre finally closed on the 2025 Nature Everywhere Conference, the words of Lt. Gov. Flanagan still hung in the air, giving strength and momentum to the movement: 

“We will lock arms. We will continue to hold each other up. We will sustain ourselves. We will tend to our spirits in this moment, and we will continue this work, together.” 

We’d like to extend our gratitude to the incredible Saint Paul RiverCentre staff, conference sponsors and exhibitors, and our amazing volunteers, all of whom helped make this event possible.

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