On January 21st Amanda McMickle, with Compass Rose Charter School, sat down with Sarah to talk about some of the great work they are doing in San Antonio.

Amanda, why don't you introduce yourself and let us know a little about what you do:

I'm Amanda McMickle. I am a school leader at Compass Rose Journey. I work to improve the schools nature and place based learning programs.

Tell us a bit about the Compass Rose Journey Charter School.

It is a network of Charter Schools in San Antonio and Austin, and we are expanding to other cities in Texas. What makes them unique is that each school has a specialty focus so families can fill a need in their students lives and their learning interests in and strengths. Various Compass Rose Journey schools serve all grades from K-12.

How do you work in the nature and equity space in San Antonio?

What I have learned through working in formal education for over 20 years and being connected to the informal education world is nature really enhances learning, especially for our marginalized populations. It allows students to succeed in formal education in ways they do not in other areas. Often students who struggle in the classroom thrive when you take them outside.

On March 15th Amelia Haslam Smith from Camp Aranzazu sat down with Sarah Coles, Texas Children in Nature Network Executive Director, to talk about their program and how they are engaging with children and families in the Coastal Bend.

Introduce yourself and tell us about what you do:

My name is Amelia Haslam Smith and I am the Camp Director at Camp Aranzazu. I have been with the organization for eight years, I started as a seasonal counselor and am now the Camp Director. I am originally from Georgia and studied recreation with an emphasis on therapeutic recreation and natural and cultural resource management in school. I am a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist. I am passionate with combining the outdoors with therapy and creating a better experience for those we are working with.

What does Camp Aranzazu do?

Camp Aranzazu provides an inclusive and adaptive camp experience for youth with special needs. Our mission is to enrich the lives of our campers through these camping experiences that is accessible to them. We are a residential camp and also offer day camp opportunities. We work off of a partner model, meaning we provide the facility, activities and program staff, and meals, while our partners serve their constituents and provide the camp counselors. Some of our community partners are: Driscoll Children's Hospital, the Epilepsy Foundation, Aspire Accessories and more. All of our partners bring lots of different campers and populations to our site. We offer intentional programming, working with our partners to create the experience that is best therapeutically for the youth who are coming to our camps. We view the camp as an chance to create positive experiences for the campers.

On December 11th Chanel Davis and Beth Bennett from Austin Youth River Watch sat down with to talk about their program and how they are engaging youth in the Austin area,

Introduce yourselves and tell us about what you do:

My name is Beth Bennett, I am the Senior Program Coordinator with River Watch. I have been with the organization for over three years. In school I studied environmental policy in college at St Edwards. I focused on environmental education because I noticed that in all of my policy classes the basis of change was education. I work directly with students to provide hands on and virtual programming, and helped develop an launch the environmental leadership program our college internship program.

My name is Chanel Davis, I am a Program Coordinator with AYRW. I have been with the organization for one and half years. My background is in animal behavior with a Master's in education. Like Beth I picked up on the start of all the changes we want to see is with education. I love being outdoors and want to share that with people as part of my career, and spend a majority of my time working with students, now in a virtual format.

What does your organization do?

Jill met with Alice on February 9, 2024 to share more about Bayou City Play's work and new resources.

Jill, please introduce yourself and tell us a little about you:

My name is Jill and I’m a librarian and playworker. I founded Adventure Play at The Parish School in 2008. It is one of only a handful of adventure playgrounds in the United States and I am so grateful to be a part of it. Adventure playgrounds developed in Europe after WWII and are places where children can play freely with found materials (both natural and industrial). They are meant to compensate for the loss of children’s independent mobility and safety in urban settings. On our adventure playground children build structures with hammers and nails, they play with our goats, observe frogs and lizards, catch crawfish, climb trees, swing in hammocks, and collect pebbles, but more importantly, they build culture among themselves. They name things, make rules, determine their own goals and their own paths to get where they want to go. They figure out ways of distributing resources and resolving conflict that are different than what adults might teach but are better suited to everyone. And children are highly motivated to do things that are normally difficult/avoided, because the space and the process belongs to them.

On April 6th Cari Browning sat down with Sarah Coles, Texas Children in Nature Network Executive Director, to talk about the OLE! Texas initiative and how it is creating nature rich outdoor spaces for Early Childhood Centers across the state.

Introduce yourself and tell us about what you do:

My name is Cari Browning, I am a Recreation Therapist with a master's degree in International Health Promotion. I work as the Physical Activity Coordinator for the Department of State Health Services, Obesity Prevention Program in the Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Section. Our mission is to serve all Texans by improving and supporting systems, policies and environments that promote health and improve quality of life.

My experience practicing as a Recreation Therapist provided me with the opportunity to work with people of all abilities; this experience illuminated how physical environments (policies and practices within) can either include or exclude people. I learned that our environment (albeit chosen or not) is the antecedent to consider.

My personal interest in nature is rooted in my work with municipal parks & recreation programs. Connecting with natural environments is what I aspire personally & professionally for (thank you childhood Dogwood tree and world travel). My passions are to connect and inspire people & stimulate human connections with nature and the world. These passions carry into my professional work to create environments that support movability.

Kelsey Scherschel met with Alice on March 15th to share more about the City of San Antonio's work to create Nature Smart Libraries that provide children and families more access to outdoors spaces and nature-based programming.

Kelsey, please introduce yourself and let us know a little about you:

I’m Kelsey Scherschel and I am the Natural Areas Manager for the San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department. I oversee all the parks designated as natural areas within the City of San Antonio. These are parks that are really focused on preserving properties with special natural or cultural resources or have large tracts of land. We manage the parks for public access and conservation priorities whether that be endangered species, aquifer protection, things of that nature. We also have a mission to educate the public about nature and we do that at both park sites and through outreach in the community.

Tell us a bit about Cities Connecting Children to Nature and Nature Smart Libraries.

Cities Connecting Children to Nature (CCCN) is a partnership between the National League of Cities and the Children & Nature Network. In 2018, San Antonio became a part of the second cohort of CCCN cities across the nation. As part of the initiative, we were looking at more equitable ways to create access to nature for children. We worked with our Office of Equity to determine areas of the city where the residents would really benefit from greater connection to nature. Nature Smart Libraries (NSL) was one of our main strategies that arose out of public meetings, stakeholder input, and internal meetings. We started the NSL strategy in 2019 with Cortez Library, and we did a big kick off event to signal the beginning of our work in San Antonio Libraries.

Gina LaMotte sat down with Sarah to find out more about EcoRise, their research and what it has to tell us about Children in Nature.

Gina, introduce yourself and tell us what you do:

My name is Gina LaMotte and I am the Founder President and Chief Innovation Officer of EcoRise. My position is a lot of community partnerships and raise our impact in environmental education to the next level, experiment with ideas and a bit of fundraising. We have a project called GenThrive, where we are working to create a vision of what is possible. I also do a lot of visioning and strategy.

What does your organization do?

EcoRise is a non-profit that works and partners with K-12schools with a vision to work with youth to create a sustainable future for all. We offer curriculum support, grants, networks and introduce young people to conservation and sustainability challenges.

Our flagship program is called Sustainable Intelligence - it is a kindergarten to 12th grade program that promotes environmental literacy across seven themes and students are actively tackling sustainability challenges during the school day. It encourages both place-based and project based learning within the formal classroom. We also have a green building program for high school students, bringing conservation and technology into classrooms and offering the LEAD Green certificate to those students. We offer paid internships in the summer to students within design firms, and this is all done with an equity lens. We just launched a mayor's climate youth council in San Antonio, in this program our students are working directly with the mayor's office to develop ways to implement the City's sustainability plan.

Luke Metzger met with Alice on June 28, 2023 to share more about the work Environment Texas does and the Centennial Bill coming up on the November ballot.

Luke, please introduce yourself and let us know a little about you:

I'm Luke Metzger, the Executive Director of Environment Texas, and I've been in Texas for twenty-three years. I'm married and have three kids and we have a goal to visit every state park in Texas, so we spend a lot of time camping and in nature. It's so great to see our kids drop the tablets and just go run free in the wild and start campfires, and swim in wild rivers. You just notice a dramatic improvement in their mood and their relationships with each other, the fighting stops, and they just start having a lot of fun. I've been a big fan of nature all my life. I was an army brat, so I spent a lot of time in Germany and my formative years were over there. As a boy scout growing up there, I got to go see some beautiful places camping in the Alps and hiking in the Black Forest. I just came to love nature through some of those early experiences and have stuck with it ever since, and then decided to make it my profession by advocating for the environment.

On January 13th Carra Garza from Green Spaces Alliance South Texas sat down with to talk about their program and how they are engaging youth in the San Antonio area.

Introduce yourselves and tell us about what you do:

My name is Carra Garza. I am the Picture Your World Program Manager with Green Spaces Alliance South Texas. I have been running this program since 2013. I was introduced to it as an artist, I had been invited to be a photographer educator for kids in the program. I became the program manager when my predecessor retired.

What does your organization do?

We are trying to make San Antonio greener. Green Spaces Alliance South Texas is an Urban Land Trust founded in 1998 to serve the City of San Antonio and Baxer County. We conserve available urban natural land and working farms and ranches. We have two public programs that connect people to land and nature.

How does Green Spaces Alliance South Texas work in the nature space in San Antonio

In addition to our conservation easements we own two properties, one is Bulverde Oaks Nature Preserve in North East San Antonio. We have made efforts to provide a nature sanctuary amid city development. The Preserve now has two miles of trails, two acres of restored prairie, and various facility enhancements. We are open to the public on the first Saturday of every month.

On September 15th, 2021 Katherina Kang, Education Director of Groundwork Dallas, sat down with Sarah to talk about some of the great work they are doing in North Texas.

Katherina, why don't you introduce yourself and let us know a little about you:

My name is Katherina Kang. I am the Education Director for Groundwork Dallas, I focus on creating youth education opportunities for our volunteers and attendees at our events, this can range from quick education moments to water quality education days or working with anyone who is interested in volunteering with our organization.

I recently graduated with a Masters from UNT in Urban Geography and did my research in urban soil pollution. I am interested in broadening the idea of urban environmental sustainability practices, especially within in my Dallas Community. Growing up as a Dallas resident I have always felt a connection with the city of Dallas. I also felt like there is an isolating feeling in the city, there isn't a lot of nature around. I want to bring more conservation to our local communities is a big driving factor for me in this role.

Tell us a bit about Groundwork Dallas

Groundwork Dallas is an environmental based non-profit focused on youth education and development, we are focused on changing the Dallas landscape. Our moto is "changing places, changing lives." We believe that by doing the simple things, focusing on our local community, changing the landscape by removing empty lots, cleaning up local parks, we improve the mindset of our youth and inspiring environmental stewardship. Beyond that we are focused on beautification projects in the City of Dallas and encouraging sustainable practices, we work on trails, garbage bins, and so much more. We want the city to be a safe and accessible place for our South Dallas youth.

Steve met with Alice on May 23, 2024 to share more about HealthCode's work.

Please introduce yourself Steve and let us know a little about you.

I'm Steve Amos and I head up the nonprofit HealthCode. Our mission is to empower people to live healthier, happier lives, free from preventable chronic diseases. I've been around the Texas Children in Nature Community since its origin. I was on the statewide steering committee with Nancy Heron and other amazing folks. As a seasoned Eagle Scout, this is especially important to me personally, in terms of what we're doing to engage kids - young and old - to be active, outside, and able enjoy the wonderful benefits of nature.

Before starting HealthCode, I had a career in international marketing and advertising. Moving to Austin in 1988, from New York City, with the advertising agency GSD&M. I worked on the Texas tourism account – including nature tourism - and several other clients. Since 1999, I have been working in the areas of education and health, leveraging technology to make real-world impacts.

Please tell us about HealthCode and the work happening there.

On August 10th, 2021 Lysa Ratkiff, Executive Director of Kaboom!, sat down with Sarah to talk about some great initiatives they are piloting in Texas.

Lysa, why don't you introduce yourself and let us know a little about you:

My name is Lysa Ratliff and I am the CEO of a national non-profit organization called KABOOM! We have been working for the last 25 years to bring communities and kids together to end playspace inequity for children in the United States. We want all families to have equitable access to places to play where they live, at schools, in communities, around the corner, because we know an important part of childhood is the space to play in and not every kid has equitable access to those spaces.

What is really special about where we work is first, we look at where the need is the greatest - we use data to see where there have been historical, usually racial, disinvestment in communities. But more importantly, we partner with communities to recognize what they need, to understand their hopes and dreams. We then do our best to build a space that helps meet the unique needs and desires of the community we are working in.

Tell us a bit about Kaboom!

On April 30th Jacey Tosh from Texas A&M Forest Service sat down with Sarah to talk about their program and how they are engaging children and families in nature in Texas.

Introduce yourselves and tell us about what you do:

My name is Jacey Tosh, and I am the Conservation Educator for the Texas A&M Forest Service. Texas A&M Forest Service is the state agency responsible for the conservation and protection of forest lands, and we are tasked by the Texas Legislature to ensure the state’s trees, forests and related natural resources are protected and sustained for the benefit of all.

A big part of the leadership we provide is through our education programs which set the standard for forest and wildfire learning throughout the entire state, both in formal K-12 learning institutions and in informal settings, like environmental education centers. It’s our goal to ensure that all Texans have access to resources that help them become forest literate, meaning they have a working understanding of the following questions: What is a forest? Why are forests important? How do people sustain forests? What’s my responsibility as a citizen toward keeping forests sustainable?

On March 30th Helen Holdsworth and Masi Mejia sat down with Sarah Coles, Texas Children in Nature Network Executive Director, to talk about their program and how they are engaging with youth in three communities in Texas.

Introduce yourselves and tell us about what you do:

My name is Helen Holdsworth and I am the Chief of Engagement at the Witte Museum. I am involved of anything where we engage students, visitors or special audiences, any education programs, and help with our pollinator garden. A couple of years ago I also helped with the Texas Wild Galleries and still do some work in those spaces.

My name is Masi Mejia, I am the Educator for the East Foundation. Our mission is to promote the advancement land stewardship in South Texas, we are based out of South Texas. I normally do programs in the classroom, but have been doing lots of virtual programs this past year with the Texas Wildlife Association. The Land Stewardship Ambassador program is a big part of my job.

Tell us a bit about the Land Stewardship Ambassadors program.

Our Land Stewardship Ambassadors program started in 2019. It is a ten-week program for high school students to create ambassadors and leaders for land stewardship.

Lauren met with Alice recently to share more about PEAS - Partners for Education, Agriculture and Sustainability's work and new resources.

Lauren, please introduce yourself and tell us a little about you:

I am Lauren Zappone Maples. I'm the Founder and Executive Director of PEAS which stands for Partners for Education, Agriculture and Sustainability. I started out as a classroom teacher and had the opportunity to work with the community in my area on a project that built a community garden and outdoor learning space on a school campus. That's what got me excited about outdoor learning and then realized that it was hard for teachers to have all they needed to get their classes out to use the space. That's why we started PEAS. Our community project started in 2011 and then in 2015 we became a full nonprofit and started outreach programming to other schools.

I am a nature enthusiast and an amateur, self-taught naturalist. I have four children and we've spent a lot of time outdoors with them over the summers. My husband is also an educator so we had summers off for many, many years together to camp all over the place. I think that is one of the biggest joys of my life was that I had the opportunity to share that time with my kids. We would go to the Big Bend area, to both the state and national parks. We've spent a lot of time out there. The state park is a big deal for us just because it's a little less known. We've had the lovely luck of just feeling like we were away from it all when we were out there.

Adam Flores met with Sarah on August 25th to share more about Roam Wild and how they work to engage more children and youth in nature.

Adam, please introduce yourself and let us know a little about you:

My name is Adam Flores and I am the founder of Roam Wild, a North Texas nonprofit that works to get young people from diverse backgrounds outside enjoying nature through adventure travel. I grew up mostly in Minneapolis, Minnesota (the other end of I-35) where I spent a bulk of my youth attending summer camps. I progressed from day camps in my early years to multi-day backpacking adventures in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area as a teenager, almost all of which was with the YMCA. In college, I worked at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park, Colorado and that's where I caught the adventure sports bug - if I wasn't working, I was out rock climbing, mountain biking or trail running.

My love of the outdoors was also heavily influenced by my parents. Although they separated when I was five, both my mom and dad love spending time in nature - canoeing, hiking, and backpacking. My father, who is Mexican American and Apache, also instilled in me a deep sense of social justice. He, and my stepmom, dedicated much of their lives to working and volunteering in social justice spaces, which frequently meant so did their kids. It is that connection to the outdoors and diversity and inclusion that makes what we're doing with Roam Wild so important to me.

On November 16, 2021 Isabel Huerta, Director of Sammy's House, sat down with Sarah to talk about some of the great work they are doing in Austin.

Isabel, why don't you introduce yourself and let us know a little about you:

My name is Isabel Huerta and I am the Executive Director and Founder of Sammy's House. Sammy's House is a non-profit agency that provides services to children and young adults with disabilities in Austin. We operate a child development center, a respite care program, youth/adult work-readiness program, and adaptive summer camps. We have lots of different things going on.

How do you work in the nature and equity space?

Right now 60% of our enrollment is comprised of students who are from economically disadvantaged households, attending via subsidized tuition and/or scholarships. Fifty-five percent of our students identify as non-white. When we look at what educational opportunities are available to our students, it isn't the same opportunities available to other students in the community. We look to level the playing field that has been impacted by race, economics, and disability. Of all the ways you can take things away from a student, ability is one of the hardest to recover from. The lack of financial resources and a knowledge base exacerbates the loss of opportunities that occur for children with disabilities as they seek to learn and experience the world. We are deeply motivated by this inequity. Encouraging independence is big for us, the further along we can get young children today, the better outcomes they will have as they get older. We are always looking into the future to find ways to make a difference and make sure our students have a higher quality of life.

Maia met with Alice on April 23, 2024 to share more about Texans for Clean Water's work.

Maia Corbitt is the President and driving force behind Texans for Clean Water which is a Texas Children in Nature Network partner. This Texas Longhorn has been working on water and waste issues in Texas for over 20 years now. Tell us more about yourself.

I started my career in the water and waste nexus with the Lower Colorado River Authority right out of college in Austin. Then I worked with the State of Texas Alliance for Recycling, before making my way into the law and lobby side. I’ve been with Texans for Clean Water for about seven years. I became a passionate advocate and jumped into the mission with both feet. I also work for the Garver Black Hilyard Family Foundation. It provides funding to organizations that work on helping communities with clean, green open spaces. It's a very good synergy.

I enjoy getting outside, getting on the Colorado River with kayaks and paddle boards. It's a beautiful thing to see clean water, it really is. I've become almost a one-trick pony. I'm always looking for bottles, cans and styrofoam on the sides of the waterways. I love taking my kids out into nature, which is another reason why I love the Texas Children in Nature Network. Not only because I think our missions are aligned, but I enjoy getting out in nature with my kiddos.

On January 11th Jaime Davis and Michele Hockett Cooper from The University of Texas School Gardens Program sat down with to talk about their program and how they are engaging teachers and students in the Austin area,

Introduce yourselves and tell us about what you do:

My name is Michele Hockett Cooper. I have been with the University of Texas for five years. I started working at UT with Jaime in her lab as a program coordinator in the Texas Sprouts Education Program, establishing health connections between gardens and preventing obesity in children. In that program each lesson had a food component of some kind and we looked at a bunch of different health outcomes. We worked with school gardens all around Austin for four years. With this project we designed a course at the University to keep undergraduate students involved in school gardens, we were wanting to tackle the gap in the experience we were seeing in the training of the nutrition studies students at the University. It is a one year course, and it puts undergraduate students in schools to teach nine gardening and nutrition lessons with one class and have a mentor teacher there to help them learn.

My name is Jaime Davis. I am the PI on the Texas Sprouts Education Program. We are currently in data analysis for this project, and so far it is showing to have been very successful. We saw an increase in vegetable intake with students and greater glucose control in the students who participated with the program. We have seen improvements with the students who spent time in the garden in the following areas: time on task, academic performance, physical activity level, and psycho-social variables. We also saw a higher level of buy-in from students while in the garden. Now we are looking at how we can sustain the program.