Our Team

*CO Dept Early Childhood - Director and Coach Certified 2022

*Early Childhood Health Outdoors (ECHO) Coach Certified 2022

*MS Ecological Teaching and Learning - Lesley University 2011

*BA Biology (Focus on Field Ecology) Colorado College 2000

*CO Teaching License Science 7-12 w/ ELL Designation

*Wilderness First Responder

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Ryan is a web weaver and a bringer of people and ideas. He has taught and facilitated ecological literacy for over 22 years both inside and outside the formal classroom with ages 3 through 18.  

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Ryan is a "re-wilding" practitioner and has been since age 3.  He honors the natural and inherent beauty of human migration while still being accountable to repair settler colonial oppression and border imperialism. He resides on stolen native land, Tsêhéstáno (Cheyenne) and Hinono'eino (Arapaho) unceded territory and works towards reconciliation through Land Back initiatives.  His heart and soul are rooted in the intermountain west bio-region but like all White Americans his relatives are immigrants.  Born and raised in Denver, attending integrated DPS schools (Park Hill Elementary 1989; Smiley Middle 1992; Manual High School 1996).

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He reveres the interweaving of life and organizes for climate justice transitions addressing the human induced Sixth Mass Extinction.  He aims to help students and society participate in the global movement to protect life on Earth, sometimes listening to “youth wisdom” before listening to “adults”.  For the last several years, while working as an Ecological Literacy Specialist in Denver Public Schools and in Salt Lake City Public Schools, he has been a researcher and practitioner of Land Based and Nature Based Pedagogy and/or Forest Schools and also creating modified Forest School programming for public schools.  

*CO Dept Early Childhood - Director and Coach Certified 2022

*Early Childhood Health Outdoors (ECHO) Coach Certified 2022

*MA Early Childhood Education, ASU 2017
*Teaching License, CO Birth - Eight 2017-23

*BFA Fine Arts, SVA NYC, NY 2010
*BEES Educator, CU Denver 2019

*Wilderness First Aid 2023

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Kat is a synthesizer, who values understanding how things work. She has taught and facilitated early childhood environments both inside and outside the classroom for 10 years.

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Kat grew up on the salty coast of New England, on the land of the Wabanaki, Pennacook, Pawtucket, & Abenaki people.

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After spending a decade in New York City, she moved out west. Landing in Denver in 2017, Kat has worked in a variety of preschool settings to hone her skills in nature-based, child-led learning. From Colorado Kids Academy, Head Start programs in Clayton Early Learning, and Denver Public Schools - she has been developing relationships with several local communities, incredible families & wildly talented colleagues.​ 

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Her passion lives in cultivating perceptual reciprocity through meaningful relationships with the human and non-human world.  She is an expert guide in playing with and around wild nature-scapes.  A careful observer of all beings, she finds out what makes people light up, especially through bird language and embodied water knowledge like the Selkie.  Her apprenticeship was served with the Black Capped Chickadee. and salt water currents on the East and West Coasts of Turtle Island.

*Certified Life Coach 2022
*Certified Neuro-linguistic programming Coach  2023
*Basic Life Support certified 2023
*CPR certified 2023

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Byrd is a galvanizer of diverse perspectives. He is an avid outdoorsman who has been introducing children of all ages to nature since 1996.

 

He has worked with youth in CO in several arenas; from the Colorado Division of Wildlife to the Salvation Army, to youth league coaching, grassroots youth outreach efforts, serving as the Chief Mentor of his own mentoring program that partnered with the YMCA for after-school enrichment programs, and as a senior student of the Tumfo Tu martial arts discipline.  He has 26 years of experience diligently working to educate, protect, empower, and connect the youth to the outdoors.

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Byrd is an autodidact, revolutionary educator, and knowledgeable outdoor survivalist. He has homeschooled his 6 and 9-year-old sons since they were both of pre-k age. His love and respect for nature is the reason he has accompanied hundreds of children on exploratory hikes through the Rocky Mountains.

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Byrd's desire to preserve nature and create harmonious and regenerative educational and economic systems resulted in him beginning his journey as an advocate for fundamental changes with the Zeitgeist movement in 2009. The Zeitgeist movement was established to fundamentally shift away from market capitalism, which they described as structurally corrupt, wasteful of resources, and destructive to the planet.

Byrd's passion is educating and inspiring the youth, connecting them with nature, and working to create systems more in accordance with the human spirit and nature.

*Masters of Social Work with Concentration in Ecological Justice - University of Denver 2024
*Bachelors in Natural Resource Tourism - Colorado State University 2021
*Certificate of Youth Mentoring - CSU 2021

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Jon is passionate about assisting youth on their journey to become the best versions of themselves.  He has been tied into the Mentorship space since his first job working at an after school care program for K-8.

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In college he became fascinated with the relationship between humans and nature.  He studied the social and ecological impacts of the tourism industry, and how to repair our impacts to those spaces.  While doing this, he helped run a mentorship program at Colorado State University called Campus Connections.  This program, serving youth ages 8-18, provided youth a space to receive free therapy as they grow into themselves.

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In Grad school he pursued a Social Work degree to refine his mentoring skills.  He interned as a social worker at a high school, and is always looking for new knowledge to expand his thinking.  He is currently inspired by the challenge of reconnecting humans with nature.  This led him to pursue Ecological Justice as his degree concentration and start working at the Nature School Cooperative.
 

Bio Coming Soon!

 

 

Bio Coming Soon!