Hopeful By Nature

A fourteen-year-old stood at the base of a sixty-foot climbing wall and said no for an entire week. Embarrassing, sad, not a good choice: he had every reason. Then an educator started talking to him in Spanish, and the real reason came out.Noel Regalado has spent eighteen years in outdoor and experiential education, working and traveling in thirty-seven countries. He’s now studying management with a focus on sustainability at Harvard, and he joins Scott to talk about bilingual programming, cultural identity, and what it means to give a young person a real choice.Years before he ran programs, Noel was a kid who hadn’t chosen to be here. At eleven he moved with his mother from Mexico City to Connecticut, translating documents and learning English because he had to. A middle school ropes course was the first time anyone handed him a choice. He’s been handing that moment to other kids ever since.In this episode:Learning English in “survival mode” and what it asks of a childThe high ropes course where Noel first understood challenge by choiceThe 14-year-old at the 60-foot wall, and the fear underneath the “no”“Choose the culture that fits you”: bicultural identity as a strengthBlended-language programming in Costa RicaThree ways to say “I love you,” and what that gives an educatorSurviving two hurricanes in the Virgin IslandsConnecting outdoor organizations into one web for studentsA two-minute practice for noticing the small thingsABOUT NOEL REGALADONoel Regalado is an outdoor and experiential educator with 18 years in the field. He is pursuing a master’s in management focused on sustainability at Harvard. 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/noel-regalado?utm_source=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=member_iosABOUT YOUR HOSTScott Shepherd is the founder of Wildward Institute, based in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. 🌿 wildwardinstitute.netSubscribe wherever you listen so you don’t miss the next story.

Outdoor equity is about more than rides and snacks. Mary McKean of Rising Routes explains why belonging, choice, and collaboration are the real keys to outdoor access in Colorado.Mary McKean is part of the team at Rising Routes, a Colorado nonprofit that acts as a "backbone organization" for the outdoor education and recreation providers who take kids, families, and communities outside. In this episode she shares what a statewide survey of more than 80 providers revealed about funding, access, workforce development, and fragmented collaboration, and how the PEAK program is turning that research into advocacy.You'll hear why "disenchanted" may describe many communities better than "disconnected," how technical assistance and shared services can lift small providers, and an idea from Mary's MBA about compounding access that reframes what it means to invest in kids and communities.This episode is for outdoor and environmental educators, program directors, nonprofit leaders, funders, and anyone who wants nature to be a real choice for everyone.CHAPTERS0:00 Welcome and what's ahead1:50 Meet Mary McKean and Rising Routes2:34 Why outdoor access became her focus5:08 Beyond rides and snacks: trust, families, and pace7:49 Redefining outdoor equity: choice and belonging10:52 Assumptions about who is "disconnected"13:47 What 80+ Colorado providers said: four barriers16:16 From research to action: the PEAK program20:24 Systems change, slowly25:53 Untold stories on public lands27:43 Technical assistance and shared services31:58 What a backbone organization really does35:22 Keystone organizations: sea otters and beavers37:21 Compounding access40:45 Where Rising Routes is headed42:54 How to get involved45:20 The one thing to do after listeningLINKSRising Routes: https://www.risingroutes.orgReport: A Roadmap for Colorado's Outdoor Access Ecosystem: https://www.risingroutes.org/rising-routes-delivers-roadmap-for-colorados-outdoor-access-ecosystem/Free resources, including Fund and Launch Your Outdoor Program: https://www.wildwardinstitute.net/resourcesShow notes and newsletter: https://www.wildwardinstitute.net/hopefulbynatureFree 15-minute call: https://calendly.com/scottshepherdconsulting/15minMary McKean appears on behalf of Rising Routes. She also works for the National Park Service, and her views here are her own.Hopeful by Nature: stories of kids, community, and the natural world. Subscribe and leave a review if this conversation helped you.

Climate change is not an oil change. Matt Baker-White, executive director of the Wild Rockies Field Institute, joins Scott Shepherd to talk about teaching college students to grapple with problems that adapt to whatever you do to them.A student starts a 630-mile bike course across Montana sure she knows the answer to climate change. She finishes it with better questions. Matt shares the wind farm town hall that got her there, and why he thinks that is exactly what a good course should do.In this episode:• The difference between technical and adaptive problems• Why Matt kind of hates the phrase "experiential education"• Place-based learning with a dying whitebark pine grove and the Clark's nutcracker• Building belonging in outdoor programs through scholarships, cohorts, and multiple narratives• Two pieces of advice for aspiring outdoor educators: go live in a truck in Utah, and go learn to read a balance sheet• Why advocating for public lands starts with knowing their historiesChapters:00:00 Welcome and wildfire smoke03:11 Matt's origin story07:34 What is the Wild Rockies Field Institute?19:41 Technical vs. adaptive problems22:54 What alumni do next28:49 Why Matt kind of hates "experiential education"36:02 Access and belonging43:15 Two pieces of advice51:00 Why land history comes firstGuest: Matt Baker-White, Executive Director, Wild Rockies Field Institute, https://www.wrfi.netEpisode page and links: https://www.wildwardinstitute.net/hopefulbynatureHopeful by Nature: Stories of Kids, Community & the Natural World.

Three of Brandon Moffitt's former wilderness therapy students still reach out to him, fifteen years later. He remembers all of their faces, and the same question each of them asked near the end of their time in his program: do I have to leave?Brandon is a clinical mental health counselor at Black Mountain Academy and Intrepid Young Adults in North Carolina, and the founder of the Autism Symposium, an annual gathering for professionals who work with autistic youth. He grew up with undiagnosed ADHD and dyslexia himself, and has spent over twenty years building teams around neurodivergent young people.In this conversation, Brandon talks candidly about real criticism of the wilderness therapy field, what it actually takes to build a support team around one young person, and why he still believes hope and joy belong in even the hardest parts of this work.In this episode:The formative question — “do I have to leave?” — behind his approach to careAn honest look at criticism of wilderness therapy, then and nowGrowing up with undiagnosed ADHD and dyslexiaThe false dichotomy of parental credit and blameWhat a weekly “core team” meeting looks like in practiceWhy he founded the Autism Symposium to train other professionalsOne small, concrete way to reconnect with nature todayABOUT BRANDON MOFFITTClinical mental health counselor, Black Mountain Academy & Intrepid Young Adults; founder, Autism Symposium. 🌲 The Black Mountain Academy & Intrepid Young AdultsABOUT YOUR HOSTScott Shepherd is the founder of Wildward Institute, based in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. 🌿 wildwardinstitute.netNew episodes every week. Subscribe wherever you listen.

A four-year-old in Zimbabwe watches a VHS tape of David Attenborough narrating a wildlife documentary shot in Kenya. She watches it again. She starts rescuing millipedes off the ant trail in her yard. Years later, she's running an organization trying to give that same jolt of recognition to kids growing up minutes from elephants they've never seen.Vimbainashe “Nicky” Chitauro is the Founder & Executive Director of WildEd Zim, a conservation education organization in Zimbabwe working with children, teens, and young adults to close what she calls the “urban wild gap” — the disconnect between kids who live alongside biodiversity and kids in cities who only encounter it on a screen.For years her programs followed a familiar pattern: build a curriculum, hand it to a teacher, run it for a funding cycle, move on. It worked in the sense that clubs got started. It didn't hold. So she rebuilt the model as a system — one that reaches district officials, school administrators, teachers, students, and whole communities before a single club session runs.In this episode:• Why proximity to nature isn't the same as connection to it• How one VHS tape shaped a career in conservation• What it takes to build trust as a first-time founder• The district-to-community system behind every WildEd Zim eco-club• What kids actually say when asked how to fix pollution — and why it matters• An international video exchange connecting students in Zimbabwe and Florida• Why WildEd Zim hands ownership of its clubs back to the schools• Her pitch to corporate funders who treat conservation as an afterthoughtABOUT VIMBAI CHITAUROFounder & Executive Director, WildEd Zim. 🌍 https://www.linkedin.com/company/wilded-zim/posts/?feedView=allABOUT YOUR HOSTScott Shepherd is the founder of Wildward Institute, based in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. 🌿 wildwardinstitute.netNew episodes every week. Subscribe wherever you listen.

Most people haven't connected the proposed Meta settlement of up to $17 billion to outdoor learning yet. In Part 2 of this conversation, Karen Cowe and Craig Strang of Ten Strands make the case for what "responsible optimism" actually means when the stakes are this high — and answer a harder question: does hope actually work as a motivator, or do we need fear instead?This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Part 1 covers AB 2158, now in Senate Appropriations with a hearing scheduled for September 28 — listen to that one first if you haven't.In this episode:What the proposed multistate Meta settlement of up to $17 billion would fund if approvedWhat it could mean for outdoor learning, and what it doesn't guaranteeKaren's line for the whole conversation: "less screen time, more green time"The global movement toward outdoor learning — the UK, Maine, and beyondA real answer to whether hope or fear better motivates climate-era kidsHow to plug into this work, wherever you liveABOUT KAREN COWE Founding CEO of Ten Strands. 🌐 tenstrands.orgABOUT CRAIG STRANG Consultant; Associate Director Emeritus, Lawrence Hall of Science, UC Berkeley. 🌐 tenstrands.orgABOUT YOUR HOST Scott Shepherd is the founder of Wildward Institute, based in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. 🌿 wildwardinstitute.netNew episodes every week. Subscribe wherever you listen.

Craig Strang almost didn't take the class that set his entire career in motion — he thought "five units for a beach field trip" had to be a scam. Fifty years later, he and Karen Cowe are behind a California bill that passed every committee unanimously and still didn't make it through.Karen Cowe is the founding CEO of Ten Strands, the California nonprofit that's spent thirteen years connecting nearly every environmental literacy effort in the state. Craig Strang spent 32 years at UC Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science before going independent, and now co-leads the California Campaign for Outdoor Learning alongside Karen.This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation about what it takes to build a coalition of 700+ people across party lines — and what happens when the bill they built together gets held in the Senate Appropriations "suspense file" at the last possible step.In this episode:How Ten Strands became the connective tissue for California's environmental education fieldKaren's path from math textbook publishing to founding a nonprofitCraig's origin story: a freshman-year course at Año Nuevo that set a 50-year career in motionWhat AB 2158 actually would have required of California schoolsThe moment the bill got held in the suspense file — and whyWhat Karen and Craig are already planning for 2027ABOUT KAREN COWE Founding CEO of Ten Strands. 🌐 tenstrands.orgABOUT CRAIG STRANG Consultant; Associate Director Emeritus, Lawrence Hall of Science, UC Berkeley. 🌐 tenstrands.orgABOUT YOUR HOST Scott Shepherd is the founder of Wildward Institute, based in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. 🌿 wildwardinstitute.netNew episodes every week. Subscribe wherever you listen.

What if the thing standing between your kid and a national park pass isn't belief — it's a budget line? Jackie Ostfeld has spent 20 years finding out, first as a naturalist teaching thousands of kids directly, then as the policy leader who helped build — and twice had to save — the program that gets every American fourth grader into their public lands for free.Jackie directs Sierra Club's Outdoors for All campaign and co-founded the Outdoors Alliance for Kids, a coalition of 100+ organizations working to close the nature gap in access to the outdoors.In this conversation, she and Scott trace her path from a segregated South Carolina classroom to the halls of Congress, and unpack why getting kids outside turns out to be one of the few genuinely bipartisan issues left — and why that still isn't enough to guarantee it gets funded.In this episode:Why "the nature gap" is measured in zip codes, not attitudesThe real story behind the Every Kid Outdoors pass and the fight to save it from being cutHow a 100+ organization coalition got built out of a single 2010 meetingUC Berkeley's research on awe: a 29% drop in PTSD symptoms after a wilderness rafting tripWhy almost nobody actually disagrees kids need to be outside — and where the real fight isThe new One Million Kids Outdoors campaign and how to get involvedSimple ways to bring more awe into a 20-minute walk with your own kidsABOUT JACKIE OSTFELD Director, Sierra Club Outdoors for All campaign; co-founder, Outdoors Alliance for Kids. 🌲 sierraclub.org/outdoors-for-allABOUT YOUR HOST Scott Shepherd is the founder of Wildward Institute, based in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. 🌿 wildwardinstitute.netNew episodes weekly. Subscribe wherever you listen.

For years, Odalis Avalos believed that speaking Spanish as her first language was a disadvantage. Then she helped teach a lesson about bees to a room of bilingual elementary kids, and everything about how she saw her own language changed.Odalis, Christian Trujillo, and Diana are the co-founders of Ciencia Para Todos — Science for Everyone — a volunteer-run organization that trains future STEM educators and teaches science to Spanish-speaking families across California.What started as an angry flyer at Cal Poly Humboldt in 2019, born out of feeling unwelcome in their own environmental science classrooms, has grown into a statewide movement built on one idea: bilingualism isn't a gap to close. It's a superpower.In this episode:How a single 2019 flyer became a statewide bilingual STEM organizationWhy Spanish went from feeling like a disadvantage to a superpowerBuilding science vocabulary in Spanish from scratch, with no formal trainingPartnerships with US Fish and Wildlife, NASA, and Redwood Parks ConservancyWhy belonging to a culture doesn't require fluency in its languageWhat Ciencia Para Todos needs most right now — and how to helpA mid-episode note on Latino Conservation Week, September 12–20ABOUT CIENCIA PARA TODOS A volunteer-run nonprofit training future STEM educators and teaching science to Spanish-speaking families and students across California. 🌱 https://hsucienciapt.wixsite.com/original ABOUT YOUR HOST Scott Shepherd is the founder of Wildward Institute, based in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. 🌿 wildwardinstitute.netNew episodes weekly. Subscribe wherever you listen.

Jamie Lynn Langley had just finished teaching a room of therapists how to help kids safely assess the risk of climbing a tree — when to stop, how to guide instead of forbid — when they stepped outside and passed a dad doing exactly that with his son. She didn't plan it. This week, Jamie joins Scott to talk about what thirty-seven years of play therapy have taught her about risk, attention, and why she now writes some clients literal prescriptions to go outside.Jamie is a licensed clinical social worker and instructor at Middle Tennessee State University, and past president of the Tennessee Association for Play Therapy. The first fifteen years of her career were traditional, indoor play therapy; the rest has been built around what she calls nature play therapy, after discovering Richard Louv's work on nature deficit disorder two decades ago.The conversation moves through her concept of "hummingbird parenting" — flitting in and out instead of hovering — her research-backed "Big Three" case for getting kids outside, and the simple tools, a magnifying glass, a pair of binoculars, that can turn a child afraid of bugs into a discoverer.IN THIS EPISODEWhat play therapy and nature-based therapy actually look likeWhy kids increasingly don't know how to play without instructionsHummingbird parenting vs. helicopter parentingThe research case for risk: as safe as needed, not as safe as possibleThe "Big Three": focus and mood, cortisol, and long-term wellbeingNature prescriptions, nature play kits, and trading screen time for green timeMaking nature accessible when time, transportation, or safety are real barriersABOUT JAMIE LYNN LANGLEYLCSW and instructor at Middle Tennessee State University, specializing in play, expressive arts, and nature-based therapy. Past president, Tennessee Association for Play Therapy.ABOUT YOUR HOSTScott Shepherd is the founder of Wildward Institute, based in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. 🌿 wildwardinstitute.netNew episodes weekly. Subscribe wherever you listen.