The Nature School

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The Nature School

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Community, Creativity, and Connection.

The Nature School grew from the belief that children and families thrive when they are deeply connected to nature, community, and a sense of belonging. 


For years, The Nature School has created spaces where children and families weave lasting connections with the seasons, themselves, one another, and the natural world. Places where a deep sense of relationship with the Earth can take root; where children and families can slow down, wonder, play, create, and belong.

Now, The Nature School is entering a new season. I'm carrying the ideas, experiences, and practices that have grown here into educator development, community partnerships, family resources, and a continued exploration of what nurtures connection, creativity, and belonging.

What's Growing

EDUCATOR DEVELOPMENT

COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

Workshops, curriculum resources, and professional learning that help educators cultivate nature connection, creativity, community, and belonging in their own practice.

COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

Collaborative projects that bring nature connection, creative learning, and community building into schools and other shared spaces.

FAMILY RESOURCES

COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

FAMILY RESOURCES

Ideas and resources that help families slow down, notice, create, explore, and deepen their relationships with nature and one another.

Rooted In Relationships

At the heart of The Nature School are our relationships with the natural world, with ourselves, with one another, and with the communities and places to which we belong.

DEEP NATURE CONNECTION

Our sense of wildness and relatedness is strengthened through direct, meaningful relationships with the natural world. Imaginative play, mindful observation, curiosity, creativity, and engaging all of our senses invite us to slow down, pay attention, and experience ourselves as part of the living world.

COMMUNITY OF CARING

Belonging grows through relationships rooted in care, responsibility, and reciprocity. Restorative practices, community service, intergenerational relationships, and diverse cultural perspectives help children and adults recognize both their place within community and our capacity to care for one another and the world around us.

CREATIVE EXPRESSION

Music and storytelling. Art and imagination. Listening and sensory exploration. Creativity gives us ways to wonder, make meaning, and share what we're discovering. Through a multiplicity of mediums, children and adults can follow questions, express ideas, and imagine new possibilities.

About Summer

I'm Summer Howe, founder and director of The Nature School. For more than twenty years, I have been teaching, mentoring, and connecting children, families, and educators with nature and community.


My work weaves together child development, nature connection, creative practice, educator learning, and community building. My background spans early childhood and nature-based education, program leadership, educator mentoring and development, curriculum design, research, school gardens, and community-based programming.


I am shaped by the Rocky Mountains where I spent my childhood, and by the Coast Salish Territory where I am raising my family. My talents include weaving communities of families through seasonal celebrations, translating stories caught on the wind, and following children down woodland fairy trails. I love hiking, singing, and whispering messages into small stones before sending them soaring into the ocean.


I hold a BA in Cultural Geography and an MA in Educational Psychology. My research on children's relationships with nature has been published in the peer-reviewed journal Children, Youth and Environments.

A serene landscape featuring a calm lake surrounded by lush greenery and mountains under a clear blue sky.
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