Whole Earth Nature School was founded in the fall of 2009 by Rees Maxwell, Matt Bradley, and Ana Bradley. Each of their life journeys had brought them through deep nature connections and trainings, culminating in that fateful day when their paths crossed at a credit union; the teller, Matt, spoke first. “Rees, I’ve been meaning to talk with you.”

The three of them gathered every day after, sharing stories of the profound impact that nature connection had in their own lives, and discovered a shared vision to create opportunities for all people to receive personalized nature mentorship. They quickly took this passion for living in kinship with the earth, and an understanding of the many barriers to experiencing that, and within two weeks were at their first school meeting kids at their classrooms to bring them out to connect with the diversity of nature that exists right in the surrounding alleys, avenues and parks. Thus Whole Earth Nature School was born, and their first program Coyote Kids was launched.

Since then tens of thousands of youth have received personalized mentorship outdoors, and experienced the benefits of confidence, resilience and kinship with nature. We are continually working to decrease barriers to nature connection, while increasing our understanding of the limitless diversity of the human condition and adapting our pedagogy to better support every student.

Whole Earth Nature School was created because our founders saw that there was a need for a different kind of nature connection experience in Lane County. While there are good environmental education programs in our area, there were no programs offering the type of immersive nature connection and wilderness skills experiences that we wanted to see. It is important to us that our students’ experience is hands-on and based in real outdoor experiences. More than simply observing, we want our students to interact with their environment, activity engaging with nature and each other through their learning process. Students eat wild plants and use them for medicine. They move from human trails to deer trails, following the tracks of wildlife. They use mud and charcoal to camouflage their faces and bodies to blend into the landscape and observe nature, unseen.

Another key aspect of what makes our program unique is the use of live action storytelling and themed camp programs to hook the interest of students and help them to more easily immerse themselves in the natural world. We often theme our nature camps around archetypal story elements found woven throughout all popular culture, and this allows kids to relate to the experience more quickly. It also allows them to live inside a story while being introduced to the core concepts and connective outdoor experiences we are offering.

Whole Earth Nature School was originally created as a private company (LLC). In January of 2012 we transferred all operations over to a newly created nonprofit entity. Whole Earth Nature School is a tax exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.