As the light shifts toward spring in the North and autumn in the South, this episode explores what keeps us well - personally and collectively - and asks whether we are living as passengers or participants in our time.

Topics include:

1. Living at a threshold - Spring Equinox in the North, autumn descent in the South - renewal and death side by side.
2. For most of human history, ceremony aligned us with cycles - watching the Pleiades (Seven Sisters) rise, noticing light, temperature, migration - remembering our place in the unfolding.
3. Science is not naïve materialism - it studies what we cannot see - fields, probabilities, dark matter - but it asks different questions from spirituality.
4. Science reduces suffering through medicine and understanding; ritual, myth, art and community help us face death, grief, forgiveness and meaning.
5. The real tension is not science versus spirituality, but what happens when any system claims exclusive truth.
6. Health requires biology, psychology, belonging and existential depth - mechanism alone is not enough, meaning alone is not enough.
7. The language of “energy” and “spirit” carries different meanings - measurable in physics, experiential in lived reality - clarity matters.
8. Ceremony as intention, beauty and invitation - not personal power, but participation
9. Ritual as ordinary acts infused with meaning - gratitude before eating, how we begin the day, how we hold a room, how we tend a conversation
10. Moving from I to We - rites of passage, maturation, community witnessing change
11. At seasonal thresholds something must die - a habit, a story, a way of leading, a way of consuming
12. In a time of climate emergency and confused leadership, we are invited not to be passengers but participants - small daily choices as a form of ceremony
13. Leadership without domination - strength without humiliation - integrating science without losing reverence

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-88-ceremony-science-and-the-sacred/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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Topics include:

1. Sitting by the fire together becomes a doorway into relationship - gratitude not as a nicety, but as a way of remembering life is alive, and not guaranteed.
2. Ceremony, for Annie, starts with intention and beauty - not “performing a ritual,” but making a space that might genuinely invite presence from beyond the purely human.
3. Fire is treated as a being with its own kind of aliveness - honoured, spoken to, and offered things, as a practice of not taking life for granted.
4. A simple daily practice can be enough: choose a time, choose a place, return again and again until something responds - an “altar” as an anchor for attention.
5. This way of knowing doesn’t sit easily inside modern culture - it can feel like being pulled between realities, and that tension can be exhausting.
6. Annie names both the fascination and the danger: exploring other realities without a well-trodden path can unground people - tradition can be a rope that helps you return.
7. Stories shape what we believe is possible - we live inside the story we tell about our lives, and the same event becomes different “truths” depending on who is telling it.
8. Dreaming isn’t escapism: in times of political fear and widening authoritarianism, Annie suggests we can either feed a reality by fighting it constantly, or step back and hold a different dream with strength.
9. Birth and menstruation are framed as everyday ceremonies - women making “a rich nest for life” each month, and the radical possibility of honouring life-giving blood rather than normalising bloodshed.
10. Rites of passage matter because adolescence is a “loose” time - when identity isn’t fixed yet - and a strong experience of belonging, mystery, and beauty can orient a young person for life.
11. Eldership isn’t a label you earn at menopause - it can take decades of turning toward death, letting go of dominance, and learning humility, until you can truly hold community.
12. The elder’s offering is presence, acceptance, and perspective - holding what others can’t bear alone, sharing stories with teachings (without “you should”), and making space for ceremony and healing.
13. The conversation keeps circling back to one core truth: life is relationship and reciprocity - giving and being given to — and even death is framed as the final gift back into the living system.

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-87-ceremony-and-eldership

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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This isn’t a rejection of modern medicine - it’s an attempt to widen the lens. To ask what keeps us well, not only what makes us ill. And to consider whether we can hold scientific rigour and relational depth in the same conversation - without collapsing into superstition, and without dismissing mystery.

Topics include:

1. Gratitude for what keeps us well: walking, breathing, rest, friendship, safety, purpose and for the years of disciplined study that form a psychiatrist: medical school, clinical rotations, exams, and over six years of specialist training.
2. What counts as knowledge in medicine - and who decides? Holding expertise and personal sovereignty in the same frame.
3. Medicine across civilisations - Babylon, Egypt, Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, Greece - each emerging from a worldview, none “primitive,” all culturally shaped.
4. The rise of the biomedical model - anatomy, cells, pathogens, biochemistry and its extraordinary success in acute care and life-saving intervention.
5. Evidence-based medicine and the power of Randomised Controlled Trials - what they measure brilliantly and what they struggle to capture.
6. Psychiatry’s measurement dilemma - symptom clusters, self-reported scales, and the question of whether symptom reduction equals flourishing.
7. The placebo effect, expectation, relationship and meaning - what actually creates change?
8. Ayurveda as the “science of life” - balance, prevention, daily rhythms, and cultivating health rather than only treating disease.
9. Green prescriptions and nature-based practice - bridging biomedical legitimacy with relational, ecological models of wellbeing.
10. Safeguarding, discernment and humility - widening causation without abandoning rigour, and asking what it truly means to be well.

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-86-saving-lives-and-cultivating-health/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

This is a conversation about prevention rather than crisis, and about what becomes possible when health is understood as a living, relational process rather than a purely medical one.

Topics include:

1. Ayurveda is described as a “science of life,” concerned with the whole arc of living - from conception to death - not just the treatment of disease
2. Health is understood as balance within the body, the mind, and the environment, while illness is a sign that something has fallen out of sync
3. Western allopathic medicine and Ayurveda are not in conflict; they serve different purposes, with acute medicine vital in emergencies and Ayurveda focused on prevention and long-term wellbeing
4. The body is seen as intelligent, with healing emerging when the right conditions are restored rather than imposed from outside
5. Ayurveda treats people as individuals, not categories, taking into account constitution, diet, climate, place, habits, and family patterns
6. The five elements and three doshas are not rigid “types,” but ways of understanding movement, digestion, transformation, and stability within a person
7. Ayurveda is framed as a life science rather than only a medical science, with protecting the health of the healthy as its first priority
8. Humans are not placed above nature but understood as part of it, with personal health inseparable from the health of the living world
9. The senses are described as powerful gateways shaping the mind, with overuse, underuse, or misuse contributing to imbalance and anxiety
10. Daily and seasonal rhythms — how we eat, rest, move, and attend — are presented as foundations for mental steadiness and resilience
11. Purpose and inner alignment matter, with illness sometimes arising when actions drift away from a person’s deeper values or moral compass
12. The invitation is not to adopt another system wholesale, but to widen our understanding of health, hold multiple ways of knowing, and remember that care, balance, and relationship sit at the heart of wellbeing

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-85-what-ayurveda-can-teach-us/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

This is a reflection on the living world, on physical reality, and on why informed climate education matters at a time of change.

Key points:

1. She begins in gratitude for the living world, and how amazing this biosphere really is!
2. Health is not something we create alone; it arises from stable temperatures, clean water, fertile soils and a functioning atmosphere.
3. Climate conversations often focus on ecology or policy, but beneath them sit physical laws that govern energy, heat and motion - Physics and Chemistry.
4. Climate change is driven by an energy imbalance, not by opinion or belief.
5. Chemistry explains what substances are, but physics explains what energy does in a system.
6. Climate change is already a health issue, showing up in bodies, hospitals and food systems.
7. Human health has always been intertwined with ecological health.
8. What’s most at risk and the stability of ecosystems, food systems and social systems
9. Denial persists not because the science is unclear, but we don’t assimilate it and come together - I would love to see Cross Party politics.
10. Language matters with Net Zero and Real Zero, especially the difference between delaying harm and stopping it.
11. Education is not an extra burden here; it’s one of the few tools we have for prevention.
12. Staying human means staying in relationship - with each other and with the living world.

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-84-why-climate-education-is-a-health-issue/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

A survival crisis driven by “radiation gain” and accelerating feedback loops. He cuts through denial, delay and mixed messaging with five simple moves anyone can make now - switch your power, move your money, change your food, shift your travel, and talk about it - then shows how asking seven others can cascade into mass action.

We touch on real zero vs net zero, why money we can do now, and how unity across politics beats division.

Here are the essentials:

1. Hugh reframes climate change as “radiation gain,” explaining that greenhouse gases trap longwave heat and create positive feedback loops driving escalating warming.
2. Humanity is emitting over 54 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent annually, and a fifth of what’s emitted today will still be heating the planet in 33,000 years.
3. Natural systems like oceans and forests can no longer absorb enough carbon; atmospheric CO₂ now rises about four parts per million per year, reaching around 430.5 ppm.
4. Feedback loops include methane release from permafrost (83 times more potent than CO₂), forests becoming net emitters, and loss of reflective ice - 9 trillion tonnes gone - accelerating heating.
5. Hugh warns that the real threat is not only to health but to human survival within the next one or two decades, not centuries.
6. He compares Earth’s situation to a patient long ignoring symptoms - what could have been minor surgery now needs radical, painful treatment to survive.
7. Inaction stems from circular blame between individuals, business, and politicians - each claiming it’s someone else’s responsibility.
8. Many in government and business remain ignorant of climate science or see it as a political issue; some even believe warming will benefit economies through resource access or growth from destruction.
9. Human psychology also plays a role: people avoid short-term loss or pleasure deprivation even when long-term risk is high - similar to health behaviors like smoking or drinking.
10. Fear-based climate messaging fails when it offers no agency; effective communication must link truth with action, empowering people to act immediately.

Hugh outlines five tangible actions anyone can take:

1. Switch to 100% renewable electricity
2. Move personal banking away from fossil-fuel funders
3. Shift to a largely plant-based diet (less meat, smaller portions)
4. Reduce air and car travel where possible
5. Talk about climate concerns openly to normalise action

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-83-climate-change-health-and-survival-with-professor-hugh-montgomery/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Drawing on reflections from Jane Goodall’s work, seasonal change and lived experience, this episode explores how we stay present without panic. It asks what it really means to act with courage, dignity and relationship in uncertain times.

Here are some of her reflections:

1. Opening the year with Jane Goodall’s reminder that what we do makes a difference - and that change begins with choosing the kind of difference we want to make, rather than acting from fear or urgency.
2. Reflecting on the seasonal crossing between hemispheres, and how growth, decay and renewal are always happening somewhere, all the time - whether we notice or not.
3. Sitting with Alder as a teacher: a tree that carries water and fire, masculine and feminine, strength and softness and how this mirrors our inner lives, our fragility, and our need for both boundaries and surrender.
4. Honouring Jane Goodall’s long life of peaceful activism and her understanding that people can only carry what they can - that survival, dignity and stability matter before wider responsibility.
5. Realising that while I never thought of my work as “democratic,” the erosion of democracy makes it clear how relational, sociocratic and consent-based outdoor learning really is.
6. Sharing the moment from the interview that stayed with me most: Jane Goodall’s mother responding to her disappearance not with punishment, but with curiosity and listening - and how her spirit was not broken.
7. Returning to regulation through breath, movement, sensory connection and time outdoors - remembering that responsibility was never meant to be an individual burden, but a collective one shared with the more-than-human world.
8. Realising that healthy outdoor learning mirrors healthy systems: listening matters, power works best when shared, and sociocratic, relational ways of being together are deeply needed now.
9. Closing with a reframing of “together we can” - not as fixing everything, but as listening more deeply, carrying only what is ours, acting where we are, staying in relationship, and choosing our difference with care.

Shownotes: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-82-together-we-can/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this episode, we talk about what it means to raise changemakers without breaking spirits. About listening, really listening, to children, and to each other. About how environmental responsibility can only grow where people feel stable, respected, and supported.

1. Hope is described as an active choice - a way of meeting difficult realities with belief, responsibility, and small, purposeful actions.
2. True mentorship helps people remember what they’re capable of, shifting mindsets from limitation to possibility through education, trust, and belief.
3. Jane Goodall’s power came not from force or argument, but from listening deeply, holding conviction with humility, and responding through story rather than confrontation.
4. Information alone doesn’t move people - connection does. When an issue is felt, not just understood, action becomes possible.
5. Jane’s early experiences with her mother model an ethic of learning that protects curiosity, encourages exploration, and listens before correcting.
6. Care, kindness, hope, enthusiasm, determination, teamwork, and personal responsibility sit at the heart of this work - alongside the belief that every individual matters.
7. Rather than being managed or directed, young people are invited into leadership, supported to identify what matters locally and respond meaningfully.
8. Seeing a problem isn’t the same as registering responsibility. Change begins when awareness turns into even the smallest act.
9. Roots & Shoots (www.rootsnshoots.org.uk): Hands-on projects and immersive experiences - including thoughtful use of technology - help young people feel their relationship with the living world and offer small, tangible acts that build confidence rather than overwhelm.
10. TACARE (Take Care) is the Jane Goodall Institute's (JGI) community-led conservation program, started in Tanzania in 1994 shows that conservation only works when human dignity, stability, and community wellbeing are addressed first, because everything is connected.
11. The invitation is to listen more deeply, act more kindly, and take responsibility in small, grounded ways - carrying hope without collapsing under its weight.

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-81-jane-goodall-legacy-roots-and-shoots-uk/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Here are some of her reflections:

• The Rowan as a winter guardian, its bright berries offering sustenance and protection in the dark months.
• The solstice as a time of descent, when we enter the heart’s cave and tend the inner fire that keeps us alive through uncertainty.
• How stillness and retreat restore our capacity to listen, dream, and notice what truly matters.
• The importance of reworking our stories — how memory, identity, and imagination can evolve with the seasons.
• The denials that shape our modern crisis: of planetary limits, of our entanglement with the living world, and of our own vulnerability.
• How fear and defensiveness rise in turbulent times, and the invitation to find gentler, more connected ways forward.

Shownotes: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-80-tending-the-embers

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Where our pensions are invested, and what that money is actually doing in the world.

In this episode we get practical and brave about money — banks, pensions, and the difference between light green labels and deep green impact — so our savings can serve the living world as well as our future selves.

• What happens to our money inside banks and pensions.
• Why pensions can outweigh everyday “green” habits in impact.
• Agency in an opaque system and how to start using it.
• Light green screening versus deep green positive impact.
• Ethics, risk, return and the futures we’re funding.
• The problem with labels and why “ethical” often isn’t.
• Transparency as reconnection to place and consequence.
• The role of workplace pensions and scope 3 emissions.
• Third-party verification, B Corps and better metrics.
• Moving money without sacrificing performance over time.
• Imagining local, regenerative investments we can visit.
• Small first steps that build a values-aligned portfolio.

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/money-with-a-conscience-with-nick-stoop/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Moving from “me” to “we,” she reflects on how our practices, systems, and mindsets can evolve toward a more ethical, embodied, and relational way of belonging.

Key Ideas Explored

• The move from extraction to relationship — recognising nature as a living partner, not a service.
• From “me” to “we” — human development as a journey toward community and interconnection.
• The many meanings of ecotherapy and why values and worldview matter more than labels.
• The power of shared outdoor activity — fire, craft, and stillness as natural therapy.
• Reclaiming the roots of eco and therapy — caring for our shared home and one another.
• Nature-centric models that place humans within the circle of life, not above it.
• The need to move beyond individual healing to include the health of the Earth.
• Western culture’s mindset of extraction and the call for reciprocity and re-education.
• Bringing nature-based practice into health and education systems despite structural barriers.
• Seeing bullying and domination as symptoms of fear and disconnection from relationship.
• The importance of moral courage, ethical conduct, and grounded self-worth in our work.
• Community ecotherapy and deep ecology as ways to restore belonging and collective care.

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-78-level-2-ecotherapy-from-me-to-we/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Linda co-edited 'Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind' with Craig Chalquist and has written widely on the ecological crisis as both a psychological and spiritual challenge.

In this episode, we explore what ecotherapy truly means - not as a treatment or technique, but as a way of healing our relationship with the living Earth.

We talk about nature as therapist, community as medicine, and what it means to move from a culture of domination to one of partnership and reciprocity.

Topics include:

• Ecotherapy as healing our relationship with our home world.
• Level one vs level two ecotherapy from personal benefit to reciprocal, culture-shifting practice.
• Nature as the ultimate therapist practitioner as catalyst, guide, witness.
• Eco-psychotherapy within clinical practice and the wider, community-facing field of ecotherapy.
• Zookosis in animals as a mirror for human nature-deficit and why habitats matter for sanity.
• Evidence beyond exercise research showing green and blue contact improves mood and health.
• Caution on “nature prescriptions” moving beyond individual fixes to place, community, and systems.
• Rooting in place bioregionalism, terra psychology, and rebuilding bonds with land.
• Decolonising therapy learning from Indigenous wisdom without appropriation and with repair.
• From dominator culture to partnership Riane Eisler’s lens and McGilchrist’s hemispheres.
• Eco-spirituality reclaiming the sacred through seasons, ceremony, bodies, and relational awe.
• The path of hope small groups, community ecotherapy, and standing together for the living world.

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-77-the-deeper-work-of-ecotherapy-with-linda-buzzell/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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This conversation traces the threads between integrity and innocence, corruption and accountability, and how our personal and professional ethics shape the wider ecology we live within.

Key ideas explored

• The uneasy link between wealth, power, and moral compromise
• November as a time for renewal
• How concentrated power in health, education, and business leads us to protect ourselves instead of our purpose
• Teachers and leaders navigating the “topside world” while tending what lies beneath — our own psychology and hidden systems
• Moving beyond naïveté without losing hope or care
• Reclaiming duty of care — asking whether our systems live up to the ethics we teach
• Practicing stewardship: leaving no trace, enhancing biodiversity, and restoring the flow of responsibility

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-76-the-cost-of-looking-away/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

His love for the natural world, combined with a deep sense of justice, led him to gather a team of committed people from different disciplines to form one of the most effective groups holding water companies and regulators to account.

In our conversation, Ash shares what’s really going on with our rivers, the scale of sewage pollution, and the failures of government and regulatory bodies to protect our waterways.

This is a passionate, evidence-based discussion, grounded in data that you can find on the WASP website. The Windrush itself flows for 65 kilometers from Gloucestershire into the Thames - but this story reaches far beyond one river. It speaks to the health of our ecosystems, and to our own health as well.

Topics include:

• A vivid picture of what a living, healthy river once was — and how the “new normal” hides a quiet collapse.
• How WASP (Windrush Against Sewage Pollution) turns citizen science and data analysis into undeniable proof of illegal pollution.
• The shocking reality of regulators who no longer investigate — and water companies marking their own homework.
• What happens when public services are sold off and profit replaces purpose.
• The money trail — how customers fund dividends while private shareholders drain the system.
• Why some water companies are now in “special measures” and what real accountability could look like
• Ash’s journey from detective superintendent to river defender — following the evidence wherever it leads.
• The quiet power of ordinary people who refuse to look away.
• How anger can become fuel for change rather than despair.
• Practical ways to take action — join with others, use local data, and make enough noise to tip the balance

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-75-the-river-of-truth-with-ash-smith/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

We journey from postwar Britain to the present classroom, asking how we can reimagine education as something alive, relational, and grounded in nature.

Topics include:

• Gratitude for autumn, the changing light, and small comforts that sustain us.
• Reflection on the natural cycle of endings and beginnings and what it teaches us about renewal.
• The symbolism of the elder and birch trees as reminders of wisdom, letting go, and new growth.
• Honouring ancestors and recognising what we’ve inherited through culture and family.
• The importance of doing inner work that leads to outer change in our communities and classrooms.
• Revisiting postwar Britain to understand how education emerged as a social contract for fairness and democracy.
• The 1944 Butler Act and its vision for universal education and rebuilding society after the war.
• Remembering that education is a system, while learning is an organic, lifelong process that transforms who we are.
• The tension between authority and shared power in schools and what that means for children’s voices.
• A call to reimagine education as something rooted in wellbeing, curiosity, and connection to the living world.

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-74-what-is-education-for-now

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Suzanne has spent decades in outdoor learning - from taking inner-city children to the Thames foreshore, where subjects like science, history and geography came alive, to now convening national partnerships and influencing education policy. Her work is driven by a vision that every child should have access to high-quality learning in, with and for nature.

In this episode Suzanne Welch...

• Challenges the outdated knowledge-based model and invites a shift toward enquiry and relational learning.
• Reflects on her early work taking inner-city children to the River Thames and witnessing their transformation outdoors.
• Emphasises joy, curiosity and presence as the foundations of meaningful learning.
• Highlights how outdoor experiences naturally connect subjects like science, history, art and geography.
• Argues that learning shouldn’t be siloed because our minds don’t operate in compartments.
• Points to the early years sector as an example of where outdoor and child-led learning already works well.
• Questions about why these principles fade as children move through the education system.
• Explains how assessment and measurement culture have narrowed what counts as learning.
• Calls for systemic rather than incremental change and a national conversation about the true purpose of education.
• Advocates for a statutory right for every child to learn in with and for nature.
• Notes that equitable access currently depends on postcode school leadership and teacher enthusiasm.
• Ends with a simple invitation start with one outdoor lesson listen to young people and let hope lead change.

Shownotes: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/making-nature-a-right-in-education-suzanne-welch/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Education is often about systems, metrics, and tests — but learning is about life itself. It happens in forests, green spaces, kitchens, and communities. It’s experiential, embodied, relational, and remembered because we live it.

With the rise of AI, increasing mental health challenges, and the fast pace of our lives, we need to ask: what skills truly matter now, and how can we reimagine learning so every young person leaves not just with knowledge, but with self-worth, connection, and a sense of agency?

Topics include:

• The urgent difference between education and learning, and why it matters now more than ever.
• Why formal schooling often leaves young people without confidence, agency, or self-worth.
• The danger of convergent thinking and the value of divergent, creative, and adaptive skills.
• Experiential learning: Why we remember fire-lighting, foraging, and play more than worksheets.
• The principles of autism-informed, trauma-informed, and consent-based practice as foundations for real learning.
• The Outdoor Teacher Approach: Play-based, body-led, and relational rather than hierarchical.
• The opportunity (and risk) of the UK’s new climate curriculum, and why connection, not just knowledge, is key.
• The Children’s Fire principle and what it means to educate with future generations — all children, human and more-than-human, at the heart.

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-72-learning-for-life

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this far-reaching conversation, we explore The Children’s Fire — an ancient principle that no law, decision, or action should harm the young of any species, and how it might transform leadership, education, and our relationship with the natural world.

We talk about education rooted in the simple yet radical commitment that no child should leave school without feeling good about who they are, and the power of play as an antidote to a culture that leaves so many children, and adults, masking their pain and feeling worthless beneath the surface.

Topics include:

• Exploring The Children’s Fire — the ancient principle that no decision should harm the young of any species.
• Reimagining education so no child leaves school without feeling good about themselves.
• Unpacking the hubris of superiority — how our systems consistently enforce it.
• The power of play and nature connection as antidotes to hopelessness and masking how we truly feel.
• Insights from Mac’s leadership company on redefining the purpose of business — beyond profit and growth — and valuing well-rounded human beings.
• Reflections on indigenous wisdom, community ownership, and leadership rooted in service rather than self-interest.
• A call to rethink wealth, power, and responsibility so that resources and decisions serve the many, not the few.
• An invitation to imagine a more joyful, courageous, and humane society.

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-71-mac-macartney-interview

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Topics include:

• What it feels like to hide parts of yourself in professional spaces
• The fear of sounding “too out there” or being seen as unprofessional
• Why curiosity and wonder matter more than ever, especially in helping roles
• How feelings and intuition often get pushed aside—even though they guide so much of our real understanding
• A look at where our sense of mind and consciousness might actually come from
• How Indigenous wisdom and quantum science both challenge the idea that we’re separate from nature
• What happens in our body when we feel awe or connection
• Why being open-minded isn’t soft or silly—it’s essential for making sense of the world

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-70-scientific-enough-to-wonder

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

We explore what it means to communicate with plants, how to trust our intuition, and how ancient ways of knowing are being remembered at this time of global rebirth.

In this episode....

• Through personal story, scientific insights, and spiritual practice, Pam helps us reimagine our role in the web of life.
• Pam’s grandmother introduced her to the idea of talking with plants – a formative influence that shaped her lifelong path.
• Communication with plants isn’t imaginary; it’s relational, vibrational, and increasingly supported by emerging science.
• Devices like those from Damanhur allow us to hear plants "sing," revealing their responsiveness to intention and environment.
• True communication happens through resonance, light, and sound – not just words – with the heart as the central sensing organ.
• We are vibrational beings too; like plants, we can tune into our environment and one another on subtle energetic levels.
• Pam describes “first voice” – the intuitive message that arrives before the rational mind interrupts – and how she trains herself to listen to it.
• Slowing down and entering the present moment opens a “portal” to meaningful encounters with nature.
• Nettle is explored as a plant ally that wakes us up and demands presence, while yarrow helps with energetic boundaries and healing.
• Nature responds when we become coherent – as our nervous systems settle, the world around us comes closer.
• Bonding with nature releases oxytocin, the “love hormone,” which initiates the body’s restorative response.
• We are already in relationship with plants through our breath – consciously acknowledging this can be a gateway to deeper connection.
• Pam speaks of a global rebirth and the possibility of a “new earth” rooted in interbeing, where all life can thrive together.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-69-plant-communication-with-pam-montgomery/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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This season is taking an interesting turn as I find myself paying closer attention to my inner life - to sensations, to moment-by-moment shifts, and to the subtle places where I might be reacting. I’m learning to be alongside feelings, not rushing past them, but staying curious.

In this episode, Marina explores:

• Beginning with a moment of feeling off-track, and the choice to stop and listen inwardly.
• Reflecting on the value of not knowing - and how uncertainty can be fertile ground.
• How discomfort is offered not as something to fix, but as a doorway to something deeper.
• An honest look at how ego can subtly shape even well-intentioned work.
• Inviting us to stay rooted in the body, in the earth, and in our own deep sensing
• How grief and disorientation are acknowledged as natural responses to collapsing systems.
• How there’s reassurance that we don’t need all the answers in order to stay in service.
• How true leadership may mean staying with the unknown rather than rushing through it.
• Reflecting on Joseph Cornell’s approach - beginning from a felt state that sets the tone for learning, and how Flow Learning starts from inner alignment
• Ending with an invitation to keep listening to the thread of life - and letting it guide the way

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-68-leading-with-our-inner-life/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Mentioned in this episode:

Free Course in Forest School Activities

Try our online training for free: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/free

Joseph’s Sharing Nature books have sold over a million copies and been translated into twenty-five languages, sparking what’s been called a worldwide revolution in nature education.

Back in the 1970s, Joseph pioneered an experiential, heart-centered approach to learning in nature, now known as Flow Learning™.

This transformative model, along with his joyful and accessible activities, has touched the lives of countless children and adults across the world - from inner-city classrooms to remote wilderness trails. His latest work, Deep Nature Play, continues this mission, guiding us into a deeper sense of wholeness, creativity, and connection through immersive play.

In this deeply inspiring conversation with Joseph Bharat Cornell, we explore the power of nature connection, experiential learning, and the inner stillness that transforms how we live, teach, and relate to the world. Meditation, yoga philosophy, and other wisdom traditions  greatly influenced his work.

Joseph has lived in the Ananda Community as a monk and teacher since 1975 and in this episode, we discuss how...

• Joseph shares how moments of stillness and inner joy led him to a life of nature connection
• The natural world evokes a sense of reverence and belonging when we engage through feeling rather than intellect
• Flow Learning™ offers a four-stage process that supports deep, meaningful experiences in nature
• Joyful play helps quiet the ego and allows children and adults to be fully present
• In states of deep play and nature immersion, there is a diminished sense of ego — attention shifts from self to experience
• Experiential learning is transformative — people retain the feeling of an experience long after facts are forgotten
• Studies show that while most information is quickly lost, the emotional tone of an experience is remembered
• Lasting learning happens when the whole being is involved — body, heart, and mind together
• True education begins with experience; understanding follows naturally
• Facilitators need to cultivate their own inner stillness in order to guide others
• Activities like “Build a Tree” and “Camera Game” help participants enter a state of reverence
• Calm feeling allows for deeper perception and connection than reactive emotion
• Nature is egoless - being outdoors supports inner clarity and connection
• Play is a universal language that encourages openness across all ages
• Experiences like “Interview with Nature” use imagination to build empathy and awareness
• Reflection and storytelling help integrate and deepen nature-based learning
• Meditation and inner practice are essential parts of Joseph’s work and life
• Hope comes from developing inner awareness — our calm presence can subtly influence the world.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/joseph-cornell-podcast/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Topics include:

• Reflecting on adolescence and the vulnerability of youth in today’s world
• Exploring the dehumanising of men and women by imagining the openness of a baby - full of will, need, emotion and unarmoured presence
• Questioning what our culture teaches us about feeling, strength and identity
• Noting the impact of the attention economy and the algorithm-driven rise in misogyny
• Highlighting the link between social media profit, lack of content moderation, and the rise in mental health struggles and suicide
• Asking what we are really learning, individually and collectively, about being human
• Turning to the wheel of the year as a guide for wholeness and natural rhythm
• Honouring cultures across the world that live in relationship with the cycles of nature
• Embracing the vision of wholeness - being in conscious relationship with both light and dark, doing and being
• Summer as active, solar, and will-driven - the oak tree as a symbol of discernment, boundaries, and protective strength
• Affirming the will to take care of ourselves and others, staying rooted and solid enough to be vulnerable
• Recognising yin qualities - rest, receptivity, slowness, intuitive presence, and emotional openness
• Naming the winter as a time when we lose our yang and descend inward, surrendering active energy
• Acknowledging the deep burden many men carry in the over-culture of competition, hoarding and disconnection

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-66-our-maps-are-not-the-territory/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

In this episode, we explore resourcing, emotional intimacy, nature connection, and the inner work of healing - including an inquiry into masculine and feminine qualities - expressed in the following key reflections:

• Experiencing our first ever in-person recording, which brought a deeper sense of presence and connection
• Exploring the importance of resourcing before meeting painful or vulnerable parts of ourselves
• Understanding how resourcing creates safety and capacity without bypassing what’s truly present
• Grounding through the body, especially into the pelvis, as a foundation for nervous system regulation
• Using imagination to connect with archetypes, elemental allies, or inner protectors as supportive resources
• Separating parts of the self in order to identify needs and nurture an inner parent
• Balancing heart and will—learning to root and feel deeply while staying clear, steady and present
• Reflecting on masculine and feminine energies as dynamic inner forces rather than fixed gender roles
• Questioning cultural stereotypes and affirming emotional depth, power and sensitivity as human qualities
• Parenting with honesty and presence, offering emotional language and space for truth
• Naming the pressures of overculture and the courage it takes to speak and live from the heart
• Working with the Celtic tree calendar to align internal experience with the cycles of the year
• Honouring trees like Rowan as guides in times of descent, grief, and quiet transformation
• Returning to the body and the earth as resources that allow us to meet life with intimacy and integrity

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-65-marianne-heginworth-podcast/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Mentioned in this episode:

Free Course in Forest School Activities

Try our online training for free: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/free

It’s been such a privilege to speak with so many inspiring guests, each contributing their knowledge and experience in reshaping our relationship with the natural world. In this final episode, I’m diving into some of the reflections and insights I’ve gathered over the season.

I’ll share personal thoughts on trust, fear, the power of silence, and the importance of reconnecting with the Earth. 

Here’s what’s on my mind as we close this season and look ahead to the next.

• I reflect on fear, paper tigers, and the importance of letting go, including a reading of The River Cannot Go Back by Kahlil Gibran, which explores trust in transformation and the unknown.
• Discuss the view of nature as alive and conscious, challenging the tendency to see it as an object rather than a subject.
• Share Robert McFarlane’s experiences in the Ecuadorian forest, where everything feels electrified and alive, shifting his perception of nature’s vitality.
• Question how we might experience the world through a different lens and open ourselves to communication with the more-than-human world.
• Highlight the scientific evidence of life in the soil and the Earth’s positive impact on human well-being, including beneficial bacteria, serotonin, and energy exchange.
• Emphasize the importance of deep connection to the Earth and to one another for mental and emotional health, drawing on John Young’s teachings.
• Critique screen-based culture and its effects on children and adults, including disconnection, mental health challenges, and the loss of embodied, social play.
• Share the value of silence and deep listening, drawing on Sam Lee’s message and the importance of making space to reconnect with ourselves and the Earth.
• Explore the concept of reconciled ancestors, inherited trauma, and our responsibility to heal and not pass on damaging patterns.
• Conclude with reflections on the oak tree’s symbolism, the balance of masculine and feminine qualities in nature, and a preview of next season’s focus on personal growth and valuing difference.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-64-rivers-oaks-and-silence/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Here are the key takeaways:

• Looby explains how permaculture is not just about gardening but about a way of thinking, feeling, and observing that affects all parts of life, including relationships, health, and well-being.
• The importance of Earth care, People care, and Fair share as foundational principles for creating a more sustainable world, and how cultural emergence can shift societal norms in a regenerative direction.
• We explore how to make decisions that align with permaculture ethics, moving away from judgment and fostering a “culture of allowance” to support thoughtful choices without alienating others.
• The idea of “doing the unexpected” and stepping out of traditional pathways, like the conventional education-to-job journey, to embrace the unknown and create new opportunities for ourselves.
• Reflecting on personal habits, I talk about how we can support teenagers in making healthier choices, such as moving away from fast food culture, in a non-judgmental way that empowers their decisions rather than imposes them.
• We discuss the power of context in decision-making, like the cultural norms around eating, and the differences between being “caring” (e.g., choosing comfort food like rum and coke) versus “healthy” (e.g., making choices that support well-being and Earth care).
• Looby highlights the importance of understanding the context when addressing choices, such as in the case of militant veganism or the ethics of eating roadkill deer, showing how context shapes our understanding and decisions.
• Looby shares how the Design Web can be used in everyday life, from parenting to teaching, to help people make better, more creative decisions and take responsibility for their choices.
• Emergence is central to Looby’s approach—how when we embrace uncertainty and let go of rigid expectations, we create space for new insights, collaboration, and action.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-63-cultural-emergence-and-permaculture-with-looby-macnamara/ 

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Mentioned in this episode:

Free Fire Webinar

Watch my free mini-webinar on working with fire: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/fire

Here are the key takeaways from this episode:

• The importance of engaging with the more-than-human world for reassurance, as a counter to the messiness of human-made realms (political, economic).
• The inadequacy of scientific objectivity as a worldview; reality is also shaped by subjective and environmental factors.
• How we now need to develop critical thinking skills, especially in navigating multiple perspectives and complex truths.
• Reflection on environmental education, particularly the spiritual dimension and how it is often excluded from mainstream teaching.
• Indigenous knowledge is a more holistic view of the world, combining heart, head, soul, and spirit, in contrast to the fragmented Western scientific approach.
• Insights on how modern science and technology (like AI, quantum physics, and systems thinking) challenge traditional mechanistic views of the world.
• The significance of our environment and its direct influence on our health, with much of our well-being shaped by it rather than clinical care – Salutogenesis.
• Historical shift around the 1750s during the Industrial Revolution, where human dominance and technological advances led to exponential growth and global impact.
• Exploration of the Dunning-Kruger effect: people with less knowledge often overestimate their competence.
• A call to reconnect with nature, slow down, and notice the present moment as a revolutionary act in a fast-paced world.
• Emphasis on the role of psyche in connecting to something beyond the self-conscious mind, with parallels drawn to the creative processes of great scientists like Newton and Einstein.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-62-untamed-knowing/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

Free Course in Forest School Activities

Try our online training for free: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/free

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

He influenced my own journey into environmental education in the late 1980’s so it was a real privilege of sharing this conversation with him.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-61-john-seed-podcast/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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In this episode, Marina explores:

• The 7 attributes and share how they relate to connection and the regeneration of healthy culture.
• Sacred = Connection.
• The 7 Sacred Attributes, or Attributes of Connection, originate from the Lakota Woptura lineage. These teachings were preserved and shared by Gilbert Walking Bull, a respected Lakota medicine man and grandson of Moves Camp, a Lakota Sacred Man.
• Jon Young, a key figure in the Deep Nature Connection movement, integrated these attributes into the 8 Shields model after recognising their profound impact on fostering connection and healing.
• The attributes serve as a measure of an individual's internal and external relationships, indicating the regeneration of healthy culture. As more individuals embody these qualities, communities become stronger and more resilient.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-60-sacred-attributes-of-connection

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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In this episode we discuss:

• How gratitude supports us to ‘go up the spiral and not down – it elevates us and is dependable
• Jake and Judy swamp – the thanksgiving address
• Nature connection verses deep nature connection
• The uniqueness of Jon’s work – the 4 key categories of relationships with nature
• The generation of the ‘Last child in the woods’ – before and after Television
• Gilbert Walking Bull and the 7 sacred attributes
• The power of wilderness & naturalist skills
• The creation of true leadership
• Taking your ideal scene to the ancestors and future generations – time is running out
• Don’t play small (see below the steps)
• Nature connection in danger
• How our nervous system has the instructions that we need
• 512 Project – 64 cultural elements that generate connection than disconnection
• Tracking connection Podcast: Living Connection 1st
• Tom Brown’s 7 steps to your Ideal Scene

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/jon-young

Tracking our Roots in Nature - Buy Jon Young's Audio Series for only $27:

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Mentioned in this episode:

Free Course in Forest School Activities

Try our online training for free: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/free

In this episode, Marina:

• Explores the relationship between our social self and wider ecological self.
• Looks at how communication goes beyond words and into our bodies, our subtle cues, the looks we might get and our imagination.
• Dives deeper into the Spring and our own inner cycles of renewal – with reference to the Tree Calendar and Hawthorn!
• Wonders about the power of the imaginal sense and its link to healing.
• Invites listeners to treat their inner child with the same love, care and hope we’d give a newborn baby!
• Touches on how slowing down can allow deeper forms of listening, noticing, and sensing to emerge.
• Celebrates the joy, silliness, and direct experience that come with spring and a well-resourced self.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-58-the-ecological-self

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

Free Fire Webinar

Watch my free mini-webinar on working with fire: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/fire

My guest today is Sam Lee, a renowned folk singer, a Mercury Prize-nominated and BBC Folk Award-winning singer, a passionate conservationist, activist, author of the novel, The Nightingale, and a guardian of traditional songs with his latest album, Songdreaming. 

Sam has spent years weaving music with the natural world. In this episode, we dive into his journey, the role of music in rewilding our hearts, and, of course, the captivating song of the nightingale.

In this episode we discuss:

• What is a folk song?
• Sam’s journey with trying to re-find songs from the British Isles & recordings made of Gypsy, Scot, Irish and English Travellers,
• His apprentice to Stanley Robertson and introduction to a whole other way of singing!
• Sam’s interest in conservation not preservation.
• How songs hold important truth and how they support us to remember ourselves as a culture and as responsible stewards of the earth.
• How songs hold an incredible activation of knowledge from the singer's world, and their love and pain.
• The cascade of impoverishment when songs stop being sung.
• Ornithology as a form of storytelling & Singing with Nightingales: https://www.singingwithnightingales.co.uk/tickets
• Making music with Nightingales – the decorators of silence.
• Accepting silence as a beautiful thing

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-57-singing-with-nightingales-folk-songs-and-the-wild/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Free Course in Forest School Activities

Try our online training for free: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/free

As we approach the Spring Equinox, a time of balance, renewal, and reflection, I  dive into the different dimensions of health - physical, mental, social, environmental, and spiritual, and ask: Are the values we live by truly our own?

Do we give ourselves time to reflect, to listen, and to follow what truly matters?

In this episode, Marina:

• Reflects personally on how the natural seasonal cycles represent our own opportunity to re-parent.
• Considers how Nature acts as a "third teacher," alongside parents/carers and educators.
• Explores the importance of reclaiming our own internal values—when we lose touch with our inner world, we struggle to set boundaries, leading to saying “yes” when we mean “no.”
• Recognises that true learning happens in relationships and through co-creation, not by filling children as empty vessels or leaving them entirely to their own devices.
• Acknowledges that quick fixes, like adding Forest School once a week, do not resolve systemic issues in education.
• Challenges the dominant measures of success—productivity and status—by valuing creativity, relationships, and emotional intelligence.
• Engages with the idea that learning is not just about acquiring knowledge but also about how we relate to the world and each other (Nora Bateson's "Warm Data").
• Recognises the role of creativity, play, and experimentation in helping us develop a deep sense of what feels right for us in life.
• Highlights the importance of slowing down, listening deeply, and creating the right conditions for people to be who they truly are.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-56-what-really-matters/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Free Course in Forest School Activities

Try our online training for free: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/free

I so enjoyed the depth of thinking and permission to re-evaluate the image of the child and development of pedagogies of observation, listening and reflection!

In this episode, Debi pulls together so much of her own creative thinking to enable us to really bring new possibilities to our teaching practice as well as enabling us to value children’s capacity to learn and think for themselves, when given the attunement and listening of a supportive adult.

In this episode we discuss:

• Debi provides an extensive dive into a wide range of pedagogy – from the current thinkers (see all the resource links) to Loris Malaguzzi as a huge influence on early childhood pedagogy.
• We discuss the importance of following what matters to children and how this inevitably leads to a much richer educational experience, one which an educator can link to the Early Year curriculum without any effort!
• Debi presents the image of the child informed by various perspectives – offering us the listener to consider how each image deeply implicates the kind of education we support and offer young people – this has a huge impact on the child, the adult and how we value ourselves as unique learners.
• This conversation presents a deep dive into the relationship between humans and the natural world, influenced by the great thinker Gregory Bateson (see below) and many others. Once again Debi helps us understand how much the vitality of materials influences our learning and opens us up to the possibility of relationships that are influential and change how we perceive the world around us.
• We both share the desire for an ecological, educational paradigm that begins with adults valuing our direct participation in the world around us and how this creates an empathy for all of life.
• She effortlessly describes how an adult’s attunement and observation creates a permissive container for a child to discover the life of a woodlouse and develop their own thinking, which as a side impact creates vast amounts of valuable more traditional knowledge.
• We get a real sense of the value of playful inquiry and the place of art and creativity in both education and our lives.
• Finally Debi introduces us to ‘Warm Data’ developed by Nora Bateson (see below) and follows an inquiry into what we measure really matters!

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-55-debi-keyte-hartland-podcast/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

I reflect on how we can develop greater awareness and resilience together and here are some of the areas I discuss:

• How our daily lives are built on fossil fuels, from transportation to everyday products, making us deeply reliant on resource extraction.
• While electric vehicles seem like a solution, their production still depends on intensive mining, impacting both communities and ecosystems.
• Different perspectives, such as those shared by Nate Hagens, offer insights into energy, society, and the challenges of systemic change.
• Coming to terms with how true sustainability difficult to achieve, without a massive and unlikely shift in our structures and belief systems.
• How Nature teaches us about sustainability, balance, and resilience, offering models like biomimicry to guide our choices.
• Lasting change requires both external actions and an internal shift in mindset, aligning with what Stephen Bruner calls the "internal climate of mind."
• Education often ignores the complexity of real learning, which thrives on sensory, interconnected experiences rather than rigid structures.
• Deep learning and meaningful connections with people or nature require time, space, and presence.
• Thriving systems are built on balance, reciprocity, and leadership that values nature, relationships, and community over endless growth.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-54-lessons-from-the-natural-world

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Free Course in Forest School Activities

Try our online training for free: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/free

In 2012, he was voted one of the Independent’s top 100 environmentalists and was on Nesta and the Observer’s list of Britain’s 50 New Radicals.

In this episode we discuss:

• The power of mass movements (e.g., Civil Rights Movement, COVID-19 responses, wartime efforts like Dig for Victory).
• The need for a more cohesive and alternative narrative to the dominant one.
• Moving beyond cheap energy – implications for food, education, and the economy.
• 2024 CO₂ levels surpassing 1.5°C threshold (10th January 2025).
• The need to shift the burden from individual carbon footprints to corporate accountability (e.g., Chevron, Exxon).
• The need for structural wake-up calls – governments and corporations driving large-scale change.
• Example: Concrete alone accounts for 9% of global emissions.
• The economy’s success is measured by its size, but should we use different metrics?
• The Degrowth Movement – shifting focus from GDP to wellbeing and sustainability.
• Fridays for Future – reflections on organising and impact.
• What did our towns look like before global energy dependence?
• Proof that governments can listen to science and find funding overnight.
• ‘The Greta Effect’ – a measurable drop in air travel and meat consumption.
• A mayor’s radical food system redesign: 80% of food grown locally at the same price as imports.
•  The importance of rethinking, reimagining, and equipping ourselves with better models for sustainable futures.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-53-rob-hopkins-unleashing-the-power-of-imagination/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Free Fire Webinar

Watch my free mini-webinar on working with fire: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/fire

In this episode Marina talks about her online course 'The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning'.

• Why Forest School and Outdoor Learning is a game changer for educators
• Insights from masterclasses on sensory integration, mental health and deep nature connection
• The support from the UK Health & Safety Executive for well-managed risk
• How access to the outdoors brings so many physical, cognitive and emotional benefits as well as developing a healthy psychological 'attachment' to nature.
• Our online training that packs sessions underpinned by research across the seasons - the one stop place.
• Topics included in the 16 Masterclasses
• The benefits of spending time outdoors for self regulation
• How to manage risky activities with your groups

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-52-my-advanced-certificate-online-training

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this episode we discuss:

• The role of Small Woods National Charity, including their history and mission to connect people with woodlands.
• What social forestry is and how it supports both woodland health and human wellbeing.
• The growing appetite for nature-based activities and the evolving partnership between people and the environment.
• Insights on balancing human benefits from woodlands with the need to enhance biodiversity and sustainability.
• Tackling funding challenges in social forestry and how to create sustainable models for the future.
• The health benefits of nature-based activities, including green prescriptions and their role in healthcare.
• How policy-makers, researchers, and communities are collaborating to create evidence-based, scalable solutions.
• Connecting local grassroots efforts to larger policy changes and economic shifts.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-51-nature-based-revolution/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this episode, Marina struggles with many topics that include:

• Visioning in the new year as a physical expression of intention and future aspirations.
• Conversations on creating mindsets that minimize harm to others, oneself, and the natural world.
• Critique of neoliberalism's disconnection from a respectful land ethic.
• Reflections on the right to roam and land ownership paradigms.
• Insights from indigenous perspectives on land ownership and the The Law of Discovery and Terra Nullious (see links).
• Corporate and political accountability and the need for political will to legislate sustainable practices.
• Questioning impartiality in climate education within a context of ecological harm.
• Encouragement for self-care, forgiveness, and accountability in personal growth.
• Insights from thinkers like Jeremy Lent and Vanessa Andreotti on moving towards an eco-civilization.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-50-reclaiming-values-beyond-capitalism/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Free Course in Forest School Activities

Try our online training for free: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/free

In this episode we discuss:

• Rewilding, nature connection, and why advocacy is essential for creating meaningful change.
• The interplay between individual actions and systemic mandates, such as public health or environmental regulations.
• How models like "nudging" or educational approaches influence societal transformation.
• Insights from the Education at a Time of Emergency project, including the role of imagination, storytelling, and values in fostering young people's agency.
• Consider thematic curriculums inspired by local landscapes (e.g. the River Dart).
• The Right to Roam campaign and its fight for equitable access to nature amidst England’s stark land ownership disparities.
• How restricted access to land impacts community empowerment and environmental connection.
• Exploring alternative worldviews that focus on reciprocity with nature rather than extraction.
• Identifying leverage points to accelerate momentum for cultural and ecological transformation.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-49-lewis-winks-right-to-roam/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

What if you could cultivate fulfilling lives and contribute to a healthy natural world? 

The Wild Minds podcast is brought to you by me, Marina Robb, an author, entrepreneur, Forest School and Nature-based Trainer and Consultant, and pioneer in developing Green programmes for the Health service in the UK.

I'm also the founder of The Outdoor Teacher and creator of practical online Forest School and nature-based training for people working in mental health, education and business.

Tune in for interviews, insights, cutting-edge and actionable approaches to help you to improve your relationship with yourself, others, and the natural world.

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

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I began by thinking about what it would be like to be an animal, a human animal, being force fed in a container of sorts. Trying to imagine the limitations of this lived experience compared to one where I am free to exercise my full-bodied animal life.

In this episode Marina:

• Imagines what it would be like if we were confined and raised to be eaten!
• Explores what is taken from us when we are caged.
• Reminds us that everything has agency and is participating.
• Reviews the themes of the current season.
• Examines the relational dynamics between humans and the more-than-human world.
• Considers how we may become oppression-informed, Trauma-informed and Climate informed individuals
• Revisits power as our ability to influence and act.
• Asks, “What is oppression?” Defining it as the systematic targeting or marginalization of one social group by a more powerful social group for its own benefit.
• Emphasises that anything “other” than human does not imply they are a resource, a commodity or have object status.
• Refers to "The Salmon Boy" story in Being Salmon, Being Human, with reference to Jamie Valadez and Klallam stories told by Adeline Smith (Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, 2012).
• Reframes society from a transactional model to one rooted in gift-giving and reciprocal relationships.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-48-remember-we-are-wild/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

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Nadia has worked in Land Policy for the RSPB for over 10 years and is now addressing addressing issues of decolonising the sector.

In this episode we discuss:

• The importance of valuing and protecting nature with the same passion we have for our National Health System.
• The Right to Roam and the disheartening truth that merely 8% of England's land is available to the public.
• How limited access to nature contributes to decreasing biodiversity.
• The State of Nature: https://stateofnature.org.uk/
• The persistent threat of pesticides that harm insects and contaminate our land.
• The need to decolonize the nature conservation sector.
• Embracing injustice as a catalyst for reflecting on our own grief.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-47-nadia-shaikh/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Free Course in Forest School Activities

Try our online training for free: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/free

Sometimes it appears that nature-based experiences and learning is alternative or radical, but these very same principles exist underneath our practice we are all unique in the ways we learn and develop. We all need positive relationships to thrive, and have time to follow our own interests and needs. 

When we develop practices that enliven these principles then children can grow up to feel good enough, and know they are capable enough.  

In this Episode Marina considers:

• The importance of understanding child development.
• Core principles of the Early Years foundation curriculum.
• The needs of children and the wider community.
• The what and why of play!
• The attuned relationship & what this creates when a child is ‘listened to’.
• Relational needs for secure attachment.
• Learning spaces that value ‘democracy’ and the opportunities to have your voice, be listened to, experience agency, and your ability to influence.
• Importance of values, free flow and choice.
• Understanding of place and the impact on belonging.
• Multiple challenges of access.
• The power of empathetic listening – validating how they feel.
• The value of quality breaks for play and how this improves executive functioning, resilience and emotional self-control as well as the biochemical impact of play for emotional well-being (e.g oxytocin).

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-46-core-principles-and-needs/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

I particularly enjoyed the thoughtful exploration of his value of democracy and how this begins for nursery aged children. Really thinking about how a childs’s own agency, as well as being valued for what they think and say and do, links to this value of democracy.

Alongside this, the skills and care that is encouraged and needed in understanding and supporting what is meaningful for young people. We also discussed that when children really care about the natural world or our climate, they have a lot of empathy for the living world, but this can result in children feeling really helpless which is contributing to the rise in eco-anxiety.

However, if we develop agency in young people, then this has a positive affect on their wellbeing as they experience their ability to be heard, and then participate in the change they want to see. I do think as adults we have a powerful role to support young people’s voices and to advocate with them about what they care about. But For now, lets hear from Sam and his experience of working as a head teacher in Bristol.

In this episode, we dive into:

• Revisiting the purpose of education and what it means for Redcliffe Nursery school.
• Embracing play as a core ethos.
• Exploring the idea of children as beings and children as becomings.
• Highlighting the importance of getting lost in the moment.
• Shifting our thinking to an ecological perspective, releasing pre-determined outcomes.
• Looking at creating space for the environment and materials to have their own agency.
• Reflecting on how ecological identity develops through agency, listening, and voice.
• Examining how eco-anxiety can be eased through eco-empathy and activism.
• Highlighting the value of state-maintained nursery schools and the critical importance of equity.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-45-children-as-beings-and-children-as-becomings/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Though this cycle of growth is coming to a close and death is all around us, thankfully this part of the cycle creates the ground for the next one to come, and soil and fungi science is particularly spectacular at the moment!

During my trainings and programmes, we are gathering the last of the hawthorn berries to make hawthorn leather, and looking for rosehips to make cordial and medicine for the winter!

In this episode I am grappling with how our choices bump up against the choices of others and the often invisible dynamics involved in our ability to make choices.

I also reflect on some of the techniques we may use to create safe enough spaces. 

Hope you enjoy this episode and do let me know if there are any areas you’d like me to cover in the future!

In this Episode Marina considers:

• How we agree to be together as a group and with wilder spaces when creating groups.
• What matters to us, including our boundaries and needs, while setting community agreements and allowing permission to choose.
• The importance of consent for well-being and consider how and where we gather information.
• How much we go along with ideas or actions and the power of choice.
• The edges of risk to gain benefits.
• The role of the practitioner's tone in creating a safe environment.
• Relational agreements and voicing what we need, while understanding how power shifts in different contexts and identities.
• The dominant systems and their often-invisible impacts on everyday life.
• The elements of healthy nature-based practice, leading us to reckon with our assumptions.
• How core values in education make learning relevant beyond artificial intelligence.
• The journey of 'hospicing' our culture

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-44-the-essentials-of-healthy-nature-based-practice/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In 2016 Sophie established the philosophy and concept of consent-based education, which is the theme of today’s podcast. We start the conversation about our dominant culture, and how we find ourselves within a patriarchal world view, regardless of our gender, and that we can all behave, mostly unconsciously in a patriarchal way by normalizing power structures.

In this episode, we dive into:

• What is consent-based education?
• Key ingredients of consent.
• What does our culture tell us about relationships, beliefs, behaviours and how do we pass this on?
• Patriarchy & normalised dynamics.
• Learning relational technology is rooted in consent.
• Living with assumptions and biases.
• From the old paradigm of patriarchy to new paradigm of consent.
• Agency for human and the more than human.
• Touching in to how we seek consent in a non-verbal relationship

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-43-sophie-christophy-relationships-rooted-in-consent/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

On a recent walk, I saw swallows, who will soon be leaving us for southern Africa, and I did some research on Atlantic Mackerel as I saw all these people fishing – turn out they are leaving too and going north – life is always on the move! 

In this episode I highlight the increase in special educational needs and disabilities in schools as well as social, emotional, mental health challenges for young people. I continue to reflect on embodied practice, for me this means our capacity to notice sensations and feelings in our bodies, which is not easy and how this can help us to be in relationship with each other.

I will be exploring some of my own (and maybe your) blind spots so that we can begin to address privilege and power and afford others more dignity and respect.

In this Episode Marina discusses:

• Becoming more awareness of lots of power dynamics and privilege
• Learning to be softer on myself and harder on the system
• Noting the rise in June 2024 Data for Special Education Needs and Disability (SEND) and Social, Emotional, Mental health (SEMH):
• Exploring how power influences our lives and addressing our blind spots
• Recognising that what feels safe to me may not feel the same for others
• How can we be more regulated as adults and increase our bandwidth for expression of emotion before we tip into fight, freeze or dissociative behaviour.
• How empowered SEN schools can provide opportunities to engage in vocational learning involving practical embodied experiences that facilitate social interactions and bodies that move!
• Understanding how stress narrows our window of tolerance (Linked to Podcast: Behaviour is Communication).
• Welcoming multi-modes of working in a complex world.
• Practicing staying with the discomfort and trouble (Donna Haraway’s).
• Valuing diverse life experiences through a metabolic paradigm– everything is alive in its own way.
• Shifting from a screen-based childhoods to more play-based learning opportunities.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-42-embodied-practice-in-our-special-education-needs-world/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

These five schools are for young people between the ages of 6-19 and 25 who have diagnosed special educational needs.

In this episode, we dive into:

• The potential link between criminal behavior and the kind of educational opportunities we provide for young people.
• What the purpose of education is.
• Providing other learning opportunities for young people who find traditional education challenging.
• How and why, David opened ALP The Lodge.
• The benefits and impact of vocational learning and outdoor learning for those with special educational needs.
• Creating outdoor curriculums.
• PSHE in the outdoors.
• A special focus on our new Paddleboard Project.
• The Rise in SEN figures in England.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-41-david-cowell-alp-schools/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

I find myself once again in July, re-committing to taking time to slow down and make sure I spend time in natural spaces. I think in order to walk my talk, particularly with regard to listening deeply to the natural world and the wisdom that might arise from this encounter, I know it’s necessary to slow down, to facilitate for deep body-based listening.

This episode pulls together some of the threads from this season, I discuss spirituality and acknowledge that I want my own experience of the spiritual to remain somewhat private – something that I cultivate largely on my own, or with close friends, in order to avoid too many people’s opinions.

In this Episode Marina discusses:

• How our own health and well-being is linked to the health of the planet.
• The importance of interacting with the world through our imagination and body intelligence.
• Why is it so awkward to talk about spirituality?
• The importance of boundaries and choosing when to keep things private or public.
• What is real anyway? Who has consciousness? How might we experiment stretching our own consciousness?
• Children’s capacity to apply their imagination through story, role-play, being another animal – their ability to place themselves as ‘the other.’
• Ourselves as wild animals with a wild heart!
• How we might explore listening to our dreams and body and notice what may occur.
• That communication is much more than words.
• Coming into balance – to be well, we need to balance demands and resources.
• Being open to other intelligences.
• Avoiding burnout and the Personal Responsibility Vortex (PRV) as described by Alex Eisenberg: https://www.protectthackerpass.org/the-personal-responsibility-vortex/
• What we can learn from trees.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-40-wild-hearts-wise-bodies/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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Rebecca holds an M.S. in Counseling from Johns Hopkins University and spent fifteen years working as a Wilderness Therapist. She’s also a professional river guide, having captained boats through pristine, fish-filled rivers.

With over 20 years of experience working with dreams, Rebecca has been a soul guide at Animas Valley Institute since 2006, where she now serves as a Senior Guide.

In this episode, we dive into:

• What does it mean to say the natural world is alive?
• Revisiting an animated view of the natural world and delving into direct experiences with living, animate species.
• Exploring the potential for consciousness in plants and rocks and acknowledging the challenge this poses to our modern egos.
• What is a Soul Guide?
• Rebecca's book: 'Wild Yoga'.
• What is wholeness for a human? How can we apprentice to other natural beings to support this wholeness and remember our natural capacities?
• Exploring visualisation, deep imagination, and dreaming, and how to cultivate an intimate relationship with a tree and listen to what happens next.
• Inviting listeners to turn off their minds, avoiding the impulse to figure things out, and instead practice open-ended listening.
• Highlighting how the way we see the world influences how we participate in it. We discuss the 'Personal Responsibility Vortex (PRV) by Alex Eisenburg.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-39-listening-to-the-wild-world-rebecca-wildbear/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this Episode Marina discusses:

• Celebrating the nettle seeds from the female nettle plant (Urtica dioica). They have separate female and male plants, full of nutrients, proteins, omega 3 oils.
• How we can begin to apply our imagination and vision, reflecting on the role of power and participation.
• Marina shares her journey on how we can participate and create systems that nurture both ourselves and the natural world.
• Marina delves into how individuals and collective actions can drive system change and discusses strategies to influence and transform existing systems.
• Circle of Life Rediscovery CIC and an introduction to the Rediscovery Model, which kick-started the delivery of nature-based programmes.
• Early Days of Eco-Therapy defined by MIND, focusing on a model that listens to young people and provides space, time, safety, and choice around participation. This model listens to young people, offering space and time, safety and choice around participation – If you would like to know more about our green interventions projects please do get in touch.
• The development of the Certificate in Nature-based Practice as the primary training to offer the tools and practices to enable NHS, health and social workers to take individuals and groups outdoors. Our training Certificate in Nature-based Practice runs twice every year, in the Autumn and Springtime.
• Marina shares exciting news about Natural England funding for 20 NHS practitioners in mental health and public, primary, and community health services. If you want to fund an NHS practitioner to take part in our Certificate it costs £1000.00 per practitioner. Please contact us on info@circleofliferediscovery.com
• To receive and share the latest research report on the impact of nature-based training on practitioners in mental health and public, primary, and community health services. Please follow this link:  download the full report here : Exploring the impact of nature-based training on practitioners in mental health and public, primary, and community health services by Dr Max Hope. Please feel free to share this link with the wider community stakeholders.
• Be sure to follow Circle of Life Rediscovery CIC on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or via our email newsletter,

“It’s been more enjoyable than I could have imagined. I joined to learn how to bring nature connection to those I work with, but finished feeling supported, new friends, and with a renewed vigour for my own nature connection practice.” 

2023 Certificate in Nature-Based Practice Training Attendee

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-38-transforming-education-and-health-through-nature/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Dylan uses innovative techniques to spark our imaginations, inspiring visions of a wilder world where humans play a central and positive role. He passionately believes that cultivating a deep cultural connection with nature is the only way to safeguard our precious wildlife for the future. This enlightening conversation left me feeling optimistic and deeply contemplative about the urgent need to revolutionize how we teach and learn about our climate and our vital role as a keystone species.

We dive into:     

• What is Rewilding?
• How can we encourage natural processes to restore ecosystems?
• Discussion on the UK as one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. Read the UK State of Nature Report 'HERE'
• The impact of land being owned by a small percentage of people. 
• The potential benefits of more citizens managing natural spaces.
• The contrast between ownership and indigenous perspectives on land stewardship.
• How to motivate people to understand and care about local nature and the challenges of connecting with nature when access is restricted and often requires payment.
• The importance of connecting with nature in our immediate surroundings.
• Elitism in Nature Conservation.
• The potential benefits of involving educators and artists in conservation efforts.
• Research showing higher biodiversity in areas with local indigenous populations compared to those without.
• The possibility of re-imagining and dreaming big with community involvement.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-37-rewilding-our-imagination/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

I'll talk about how we could develop these natural blueprints to foster participation, learning, and positive change.

I believe it's crucial for everyone to feel empowered in their learning and community engagement, realizing that we can make a positive impact together.

In this Episode Marina discusses:

• What’s happening in the land in July?
• What does net-positive rather than net-zero mean?
• What is nature and biomimicry?
• Learning from life’s ability to create the conditions for life to thrive!
• How can we learn from all of nature’s Unifying Patterns – could this be a template for all our decisions?
• How we move from an individual mindset towards a community-relational mindset.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/beyond-net-zero-transforming-learning-through-natures-patterns/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

I am very inspired to share this episode with you! We can actually be net-contributors as humans rather than always extracting and taking. It’s so easy to speak about all the problems and seemingly hard to find solutions to planetary and personal health, but today we get to glimpse into an emerging set of principles that just may be the foundation to how we run our systems and our lives in the future.

We dive into:

• What does it mean to be wild?
• You don’t need a wild place to be wild!
• What a deep nature connection practices facilitate a felt-sense of interconnection – a foundational experience leading to feeling connected to multiple relationships.
• How we can create positively to the health of the planet as net contributors.
• Biomimicry and Living Principles to help us do this!
• Learning to use templates that support living affirming products, processes and systems.
• Exploring how these frameworks guide us to be a good citizen that supports life to thrive.
• The imagination – creativity happens best within a set a parameters.
• What do we need to change? From the personal to the policy level.
• A deeper understanding that life creates the conditions for life to thrive, so we need to learn from the greatest teacher – the living wild biosphere!

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-35-biomimicry-and-living-system-solutions/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

It seems remiss to spend 14-16 years in education without grasping basic democracy and economics, and giving young people a platform to voice their ideas. As we develop a practical climate curriculum, addressing these wider systems is crucial.

In this Episode Marina discusses:

• The significance of outdoor learning and nature-based education within a broader social and economic context.
• Balancing respect for boundaries with personal growth and environmental sustainability is essential.
• Outdoor learning supports children's healthy development, attachment, and self-regulation, and should integrate the best educational research.
• Valuing diversity and sustainability in outdoor learning, along with co-creating outcomes with children, is vital.
• Education and society must urgently adapt to climate change and environmental degradation.
• Outdoor learning, experiential education, and community involvement are key to addressing these challenges.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/the-what-and-why-of-outdoor-learning/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Linda's passion for the outdoors drove her to integrate nature into mainstream education. I believe it’s crucial to provide young people with as many opportunities as possible to connect with nature. Outdoor learning, including approaches like Forest School, not only boosts wellbeing but also creates engaging educational experiences.

In this episode, Linda shares how she incorporates elements like fire and tools into teaching and normalizes outdoor learning in everyday curriculum.

This conversation is packed with examples of offering a broad curriculum, enhancing emotional health, and fostering a sense of belonging through outdoor learning.

We dive into:

• Reasons why teachers may be hesitant to take their classes outdoors for learning.
• Whether a lot of green space is necessary to offer Forest School skills or outdoor learning.
• How teachers can provide evidence of outdoor learning and its importance for Ofsted inspections.
• The benefits of incorporating crafts, den-building, and fires into school activities.
• How outdoor learning engages children, supporting multiple learning environments beyond the classroom.
• The importance of teacher confidence in conducting outdoor activities safely and effectively.
• Suggestions on how schools can fund equipment and basic resources needed for outdoor learning.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-33-bringing-the-outdoors-into-mainstream-education/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this Episode Marina discusses:

• What's Ecocide and Why Does It Matter? (https://www.stopecocide.earth/become)
• How may our hidden School curriculum shape environmental connection?
• The educational value of stones, leaves, mud and sticks for the early years.
• The introduction of Ecocide Bill in the UK in November 2023.
• How do we educate children for a sustainable culture?
• The scope for using freely available natural resources to teach.
• Revising punishment, rewards, praise, and grief.
• Balancing our life at the expense of not harming others.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-32-love-grief-and-the-call-for-ecocide-law/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

We dive into:

• What is home education and Unschooling (coined by John Holt)?·        
• Is it legal to home school, ‘educating otherwise’ in the United Kingdom?·        
• Is the ‘school recipe’ synonymous with education?
• How we adults also need to ‘de-school’ ourselves.·        
• What are our values and what about going to university?
• The use of manipulation techniques like punishment, rewards & growling!·        
• The hidden curriculum – how adults treat children.·        
• Growing Divergent thinkers & convergent thinkers with useful examples ·        
• The impact of language on your survival brain
• Our unconscious manipulation and support of ecocide·        
• If we want to teach eco-literacy, we need to stop teaching ecocide e.g extreme use of plastic in schools.·        
• An insight into Clare’s outdoors ‘Partnership model’.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-31-exploring-education-and-unschooling/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Humans are certainly very complex, and I am very interested in how our suppression of feelings is connected to the suppression of our wild ‘natural’ nature, which includes expression of emotions. 

In this Episode Marina discusses:

• Emotions are very rational responses! Why is expressing them so important?
• What is neurobiology? How do minds connect our body and brain!
• Introducing the work of Neuroscientist Jaak Panskseep – the 7 circuits within our body.
• Meeting our outcasts and parts that we exile and how they operate within us!
• How our ‘inner wildness’ holds the key to much treasure if we can befriend the deep feelings we have locked away.
• The discovery of alarmed aloneness and some options I may have to welcome home some of our most hidden parts.
• In our animal human nature, our sensuous bodies, fully embodied, are expressive, and curious – all reflecting this wilder, freer energy.
• How do we reclaim our own needs and build the nurturing inner adult?
• Giving the opportunity to master skills and build our own capacity and believe we will still be loved.
• How is your ‘goodness’ measured – does this help you live fulfilling wholesome lives?

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/there-is-nothing-irrational-about-emotions/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this episode we dive into:

• Flight and fight and a less known distress response ‘alarmed aloneness’ – or separation distress.
• We linked loneliness as a killer and the stressor of aloneness – the modern culture of ‘grow up’, ‘don’t cry’, ‘you can do it on our own’ messages.
• Re-affirming that our biology says we are not supposed to be alone, and healthy relationships are essential. As practitioners or parents showing our delight in our children, signals that they matter and are cared for!
• It is in fact a radical act to find warmth for us and others, not evaluating or measuring others, rather appreciating, and connecting with others.
• What does attachment mean for our health? The astounding statistics surrounding avoidant attachment and how stress increases our sense of aloneness and internal negative dialogue and self-worth. 
• We need to be securely attached! Secure attachment is when we bring the people we love inside us – and are able to have warmth for ourselves.
• As we talked about the grief of loss of the health of the planet, Sarah, reminds us that healing our trauma, will provide joy, play, and love, which we need to have to stay present to what is happening, and to have the creative energy to take action together.
• The safer we feel the more parts are able contribute – activism arises from creative response – link to August response in the UK with Prime Minister that Sarah referred to: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2023/aug/03/greenpeace-activists-black-fabric-rishi-sunak-mansion-oil-protest-video
• We create safety by genuinely liking our students, we are inviting each nervous system and brain.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-29-sarah-peyton-podcast/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this Episode Marina contemplates:

• A sense of sanctuary and intimacy with the non-human world, and ‘place’.
• The celebration of springtime and how the greening of our land informs our practice.
• The inner compass that pulls us home and helps us navigate the journey.
• Themes of love and punishment and how we exile parts that we find difficult to ‘own’ as part of ourselves.  How do we bring them home?
• My curiosity about the teachings of Jesus on love and forgiveness – and my interest in other figures in history that we can learn from.
• How we value others and be present with who they are (intrinsic value), not how they behave (extrinsic value).   

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-28-developing-our-inner-compass/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this episode we dive into:

• Are your dancing days ever done?
• What gets sacrificed for order?
• Melancholia as a teacher
• Plug into love as our main human job.
• The call of the religions of love and similarities rather than differences – are our hearts different?
• Jesus as a radical teacher of love!
• Life is not meant to be easy, and we need to love in the face of pain
• A rewording of the ‘Lord’s Prayer’
• The tough one is loving yourself.
• Readings from 'Conversations with Nature' p.g 69 & 73.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-27-peter-owen-jones/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

The importance of knowing that our behaviour does not really reflect what is going on internally and that most of the time we are not aware of our how our unmet needs are fuelling the behaviour that we need support for, not punishment.

• Behaviour is an outward expressions of feelings, thoughts, needs and intentions (see Alfie Kohn’s work).
• How do we want our children to turn out?
• What’s the cost of a punitive and controlling approach?
• What does punishment really teach us?
• Healthy relationships are fundamental to well-being.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/25-behaviour-is-communication/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

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Mentioned in this episode:

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

They dive into:

• What underpins a healthy model of education?
• How love really is an essential ingredient.
• A new model of partnership rather than domination
• Discovering wholehearted learning
• The role of love and understanding our needs
• Neurobiology & our nervous systems
• How we do this in our practice

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-25-why-love-matters-with-jon-cree/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

• Our mind's potential
• What is your Ecological Niche?
• Embracing the Nature-Centric Model.
• Choosing where to direct your attention.
• Fostering a quieter mind.
• Action as an antidote to anxiety.
• Humans as net contributors.
• What is the next moment of experience?

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-24-why-is-experiential-learning-needed-in-education/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this week's podcast, I'm chatting to Roger Duncan, an eco-systemic psychotherapist within the NHS.

For over 30 years, he worked within the nature therapy world, was one of the pioneer tutors of the Ruskin Mill Education Trust, is a wilderness passage guide and developed a UK based Eco-psychotherapy course called 'Reclaiming our Indigenous Relationship with Nature'.

We dive into:

• What is an eco-systemic psychotherapist?
• How our world is made up of systems and how we think about systems.
• The impact of modernity and colonization.
• Tentacular thinking and re-imagining what it is to be human.
• The importance of the imaginal.
• Listening to what young people are saying.
• Valuing Indigenous knowledge.
• The Circle of Courage Model.
• The Embodied, heart-felt process.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-23-roger-duncan

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this episode:

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

• Our mind's potential
• What is your Ecological Niche?
• Embracing the Nature-Centric Model.
• Choosing where to direct your attention.
• Fostering a quieter mind.
• Action as an antidote to anxiety.
• Humans as net contributors.
• What is the next moment of experience?

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-22-ecological-niches-unravelling-our-role/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this week's podcast, I'm chatting to Angharad Wynne, who is a writer and storyteller, a place-maker and heritage specialist with over 25 years of experience in the field.

We dive into:

• Indigenous Spirituality from this land.
• The superpower of vulnerability
• What arises from the connection between people and place?
• Experiencing the world as inspirited.
• What it means to make sacred.
• What is sacred reciprocity?
• The need for mythos and logos.
• Honouring our known sense of connection.
• What does the Winter Solstice mean to us and our ancestors?
• A message of forgiveness, peace and caring for the other.
• What are we committing to with the returning light!
• 3% of influence. Taking responsibility for the way we choose to be in the world and find kinship.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/angharad-wynne-podcast/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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• How nature reminds us to listen and slow down
• The wisdom of trees
• What this time of year provokes and invites
• Remembering the importance of welcoming in the new and the strange

In this episode Marina is harder to understand due to a lingering cold, but the show must go on!

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/earths-whispers-embracing-winters-wisdom/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

For this Episode, my guest today is Rowan Salim, who is a geographer, facilitator, community gardener and storyteller who loves playing, making things, meeting people, and engaging in deep, slow learning.

I enjoyed how this conversation embraced ancestry, how we both value the hospitality and generosity of other cultures.

We begin to unpack the idea of progress in relation to the Story of Education, we touch on a consent-based, self-directed socio-cratic system of education.  

If we can learn outside boxes where children can grow up knowing the local places and spaces, then it may be possible to develop values that align to what we can sustain, and create more livelihoods that are based on relationships. 

We dive into:

• How our lineages and different places continue to inform us.
• Celebrating hospitality and generosity from other lands.
• Considering international development and what ‘progress looks like’ within ‘The story of education.’
• An introduction to Socio-cratic education – where children are accepted, which is not authoritarian or coercive.
• Equating education with schooling - is this indisputable?
• How we value certain knowledge over others and reduce the diversity of ways of knowing.
• The growing network of alternative in the UK and abroad.
• The role of the adult as facilitators to be ‘guardians of flow’ and be ‘play allies.’
• If we learn and making in many wilder spaces, then we can grow local economies and valued this again and what some tangible steps might look like – time, relationship and listening!

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-19-rowan-salim/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

• The empowerment of educators and those who work with young people.
• What we have lost since the 1920’s, in terms of children’s roaming radius!
• The cultural lens of risk and play.
• How our own risk appetite affects us and what we do.
• Is using our hands for crafts, whittling and fire-making really that risky?

Risk is such an important subject that I will definitely keep coming back to, It links to healthy development, the opportunity for change and growth and help us to build self-worth and confidence!

Do get in touch if you want to add to this conversation and support positive change in our society.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-18-are-you-risk-averse/

Watch my Webinar:

Why Risky Activities Are So Valuable For Children

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/courses/why-risky-activities-are-so-valuable-for-children/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Welcome back to Season 3 – thank you to all my listeners from around the world! I have some great conversations lined up for you for this season.  

My guest today is Tom Williams, the founder and co-director of Woodland Tribe and also the Business and Service Development Manager at Eastside Community Trust in Bristol.  

Tom has been a tireless advocate for adventure play throughout his life.

We are going to dive into the long history of Adventure playgrounds and how our attitudes to risk have changed over the last 40 years. 

This is a passionate conversation that helped me to imagine a society we could create. It made me think about how freedom and responsibility are both necessary, and lead to huge personal and collective benefits, as well as the real struggles of running a charity and getting insurance for more risky experiences.

We dive into:

• The concept of freedom in childhood and how it’s hijacked!
• The philosophy of adventure playgrounds
• How children are incredibly good at doing their own risk assessments
• How overprotection is damaging
• The impact of the cost of insurance
• And so many more interesting ideas to contemplate!

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-17-navigating-risk-and-adventure-playgrounds/

Watch my Webinar:

Why Risky Activities Are So Valuable For Children

https://www.theoutdoorteacher.com/p/why-risky-activities-are-so-valuable-for-children

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this episode, Marina shares her new understanding about our planet’s water cycle and how we can begin to consider ways of cleaning our own water from our taps.

As the last episode of Season 2, I have added to the show notes a do-it yourself water filter kit and some links to the life-enhancing properties of bio-char!

This episode includes:

• Do it yourself Carbon-filter to remove a range of contaminants in the water coming out of your tap!
• The importance of soil and water in Climate Change.
• How the global water cycle regulates the climate and drives 70 -95% of the heat dynamics. The planet is a biotic pump!
• How rivers have the same architecture as blood in our bodies
• What we can do in our houses to have clean water
• Biochar (activated charcoal) technology could be used to filter water on a small and large scale.
• How wet woodlands capture the water and prevent flooding downstream!

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/what-does-healthy-soil-and-water-have-to-do-with-regenerating-life/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

My guest today is Deborah Barker, who brings 25 years’ experience of working in the rural economy, and creative arts in the public, private and voluntary sectors.

In this conversation, we discuss holistic ways of thinking about our ecosystem, the importance of soil, farming, and sheep and how the carbon cycles are intricately linked to the water and nutrient cycles. 

We dive into:

• The link between our extractive mind sets and climate change.
• The importance of soil, farming, and sheep! 
• How we can begin to rethink our relationship to clothes.
• Agro-ecology
• Examples of healthy functioning natural cycles
• Developing an understanding of reciprocity
• How we need to respect planetary boundaries and how local networking can contribute to carbon solutions.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/regenerative-agriculture-and-approaches/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this episode, Marina looks at:

1. The difference between nature connection and deep nature connection

2. The 5 pathways to Nature Connection described by Derby University (link below)

3. How different cultures and have a very different relationship with nature

4. Why attachment to place plays an important part in our development and well-being.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/deep-nature-connection-and-the-importance-of-attachment-to-a-place/

Links:

https://www.derby.ac.uk/research/centres-groups/nature-connectedness-research-group/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this episode:

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

My guest today on The Wild Minds Podcast is Professor Jan White, a leading thinker and writer on outdoor play and an advocate for high quality outdoor provision for services for children from birth to seven.

Jan is also an award-winning author and in addition to numerous other achievements, is the strategic director of Early Childhood Outdoors.

In this episode we talk about:

• The importance and purpose of childhood and outdoor play
• How the environment invites us and creates bonding
• We examine the term ecological identity and why we must protect the final frontier of outdoor play.

LINKS:

www.janwhitenaturalplay.wordpress.com

The Certificate In Outdoor Practice

www.earlychildhoodoutdoors.org

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/professor-jan-white/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Marina Robb talks about the importance of consent and power, and how so often we don’t realise how this operates in our lives. She also discusses some core ideas within the field of Rewilding Education and Wild pedagogy.

In this episode, Marina looks at:

• How power shows up in our relationships & schools

• How consent and choice lead to agency and self-esteem

• The Compass of Rewilding Education

• The Touchstones of Wild Pedagogy

Wild Pedagogies: Six Initial Touchstones for Early Childhood Environmental Educators (B.Jickling; S Blenkinsop; M Morse; A. Jensen 2018) Australian Journal of Environmental Education, Vol 34 (2) 159-171, 2018.

https://www.rewildingeducation.org/what-tools-can-we-use-to-navigate-our-way

The Wild Minds Podcast is brought to you by me, Marina Robb, an author, entrepreneur, Forest School and Nature-Based Trainer and Consultant, and pioneer in developing Green Programmes for the Health Service in the UK.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/rewilding-power-dynamics-and-wild-pedagogy/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

My guest today on The Wild Minds Podcast is Dr Max Hope.

Max is Director of Rewilding Education, a collaboration which strives to find ways to make education wilder, freer, more grounded, and more consensual. They are co-facilitator of Call of the Wild, a Devon-based year-long programme which supports participants to develop personal and professional skills as well as igniting a soul-level connection with the living world.

They co-lead The Lodge, a self-directed, consent-based learning community for home educated children in Herts/Essex which aims – not to rewild – but to support children and young people to stay wilded and stay connected in the first place. They also run Write On Changemakers, an online and in-person project which encourages and supports activists and changemakers to write.

In this episode we talk about:

• We are going to discuss what does it mean to ‘rewild ourselves’?
• When do people stop being ‘wild’? in the first place
• What does it mean to rewild education?

LINKS:

https://maxhope.co.uk

https://www.rewildingeducation.org

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/rewilding-education/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this episode:

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

Marina talks about the link between the Climate Crisis and Mental health.

Balancing what can seem quite hopeless, with some information about how our health systems in the UK are responding, as well as looking at how our medical models are beginning to include social and green prescriptions as an additional or alternative route to wellness. 

Topics include

• How the Climate Crisis could implicate self-harming

• The biopsychosocial approach

• Introducing Green care models and Green Prescriptions

• Celebrating a Natural England Grant to provide funding to train NHS staff in our Certificate in Nature-based Practice

The Wild Minds Podcast is brought to you by me, Marina Robb, an author, entrepreneur, Forest School and Nature-Based Trainer and Consultant, and pioneer in developing Green Programmes for the Health Service in the UK.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/climate-change-mental-health-and-green-care-models/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

My guest today on The Wild Minds Podcast is Dr Alan Kellas MBBS BA MRCPsych

Alan trained in medicine and qualified in 1981, worked in General Practice in the NHS, lectured at Bristol University Department of Psychiatry, and was a community NHS Consultant Psychiatrist from 1998 – 2013.

He has been a member of the sustainability committee of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, nationally, from its origins in 2014, as Green care and Nature Matters rep, until 2022. www.rcpsych.ac.uk/nature-matters

He helped set up the Eco-CAMHS faculty group and Nature Matters networks in RCPsych and was an active part of the core advisory team developing the College response to the Climate and Nature crisis, whose position statement was released in May 2021.

Read the statement here

The key message of this statement include:

Climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss:

• have created a health crisis and it is imperative that psychiatrists are informed about it and actively engaged in these issues.

• are interconnected factors which individually and collectively have a profoundly destructive impact on human and planetary health. Our actions and their impacts will be inherited by the generations to come.

• have particular implications for mental health and disproportionately affect vulnerable groups, including persons with pre-existing mental illness and children.

In this episode Marina and Alan talk about:

• What is Psychiatry?

• How Nature supports our Psychology

• The link between the Climate Crisis and Mental Health

• How the natural world plays an essential part in our development

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/psychiatry-our-climate-crisis-and-mental-health/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

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Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this last episode of Season 1, Marina looks at:

• Risk and vulnerability
• Our need for rest and play
• Not giving up on asking 'Why!'

The book referenced in the podcast is 'Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto' by Tricia Hersey (2022 Aster Publishers)

Shownotes: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/risk-rest-and-wild-play/

The Wild Minds Podcast is brought to you by me, Marina Robb, an author, entrepreneur, Forest School and Nature-Based Trainer and Consultant, and pioneer in developing Green Programmes for the Health Service in the UK.

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

The Advanced Certificate in Forest School and Outdoor Learning

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/certificate/

My guest today on The Wild Minds Podcast is Lily Horseman.

Lily has been following the threads of play, nature, community, and connection through many different roles over the last 25 years. She came to work with children through Playwork and with marginalised families in the late 90’s.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Wildness, wild play and uncharted territory
• Risk and our comfort zone
• Does our culture value play?
• Our diminished roaming radius and outdoor life experiences
• Not giving up our WHY?

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/wildness-wild-play-and-uncharted-territory/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In Episode 6, Marina looks at:

• How stress feels in the body.
• The importance of giving words to our sensations and emotions.
• The idea of place attachment
• A few ideas to improve our ability to emotionally regulate.

Shownotes: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/stress-and-mental-health/

The Wild Minds Podcast is brought to you by me, Marina Robb, an author, entrepreneur, Forest School and Nature-Based Trainer and Consultant, and pioneer in developing Green Programmes for the Health Service in the UK.

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

My guest today on The Wild Minds Podcast is Alison Roy.

Alison Roy is an experienced Psychotherapist, Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist, author, specialist consultant and trainer. Her experience has taught her to understand how important our communications are and how they can enhance or inhibit our relationships in every aspect of our lives.

​She is invested in helping others to build more healthy relationships through meaningful conversations and enabling people to be more resilient, creative and resourceful.

In her work with individuals, couples, families and groups she focuses on the deep significance of early attachments and the impact of trauma and loss on the personality. As the co-founder and previously the Clinical Lead for the CAMHS and East Sussex specialist adoption service – AdCAMHS, she has learned much from those who have experienced significant losses, shocks and challenges in their lives and just how complicated life can be. She has also written a book about adoption, a chapter about education through the arts and contributes regularly to the press and mainstream media.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How nature as our first home is part of a healthy mental health. 
• How gratitude is not necessarily instinctive.
• Metaphors that help us to understand ourselves.
• That some children will only engage when they are physical, so the need to be outside and move is paramount.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/5-alison-roy/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

Twitter: @alisonroy20

Linked in: Alison-Roy

Website: www.psych-communications.com

A For Adoption: Book on adoption:

https://www.routledge.com/A-for-Adoption-An-Exploration-of-the-Adoption-Experience-for-Families-and/Roy/p/book/9780367439477

Trauma stories training for professionals. Contact Alison through her website or email her on: info@psych-comms.com

Creativity in education and children in distress. Alison has written a chapter in a book called Education through the arts:

https://www.routledge.com/Education-through-the-Arts-for-Well-Being-and-Community-The-Vision-and/Burke-Cunningham-Hoare/p/book/9780429318115

Reflective practice groups – Alison facilitates reflective practice groups for public, community based and private sector organisations. See:

https://www.psych-communications.com/consultation-and-training