1. NAAEE Environmental Educator Knowledge and Skills: Guidelines for Excellence
 | This is a comprehensive set of recommendations about the knowledge and skills or competencies educators use to provide effective environmental education. Environmental Educator Knowledge and Skills: Guidelines for Excellence outlines the experiences and learning that will help educators foster environmental literacy, plan environmental education programs, and implement them. These guidelines suggest a broad vision—a goal to work toward and a guide for personal, professional, and programmatic development. Free download available HERE. |
2. Outdoor Learning Store: Birding Tools & Resources
 | Birds are such a fantastic way of connecting the local schoolyard or backyard with the wider natural environment. Birds are visible and identifiable and they provide learners with the opportunity to make connections with the ecosystem that they are part of. The Outdoor Learning Store offers some fantastic resources for helping your students learn through birding. View their resources HERE. |
3. Children & Nature Network Research Library
 | This is the world’s largest collection of peer-reviewed literature about nature’s benefits for children. Each month, they review the latest research on children and nature, then choose and summarize the most relevant studies to add to the library. The sheer volume of research now available makes a compelling case that when children have access to nature, they are healthier, happier, smarter, and better stewards of the environment. Explore the library HERE. |
4. NAAEE Podcast: Love as the Root of Impactful Nature-based Education with Sean Southey
 | What does it mean to fall in love with nature—and why does that love matter for the future of our planet? In this episode of The World We Want: The NAAEE Podcast, host Gerry Ellis sits down with Sean Southey, CEO of the Canadian Wildlife Federation and longtime champion of nature-based education, to explore how love and connection form the foundation of lasting change. Join us as we hear from someone whose confidence in love’s ability to change the world and our relationship to it is both inspiring and activating. Sean shares powerful stories about how nature-based education transforms not only classrooms, but also communities, shaping how we live, lead, and care for the world around us. This conversation reveals why fostering a culture of care begins with the simple act of helping people connect—and fall in love—with nature. Sean guides listeners through the stages of reflection from childhood memories of wild play to global movements like Nature for All and Outdoor Grannies, from that one teacher who planted seeds of connection with nature to the potential for a more caring and connected community spanning countries and continents. Listen HERE. |
5. Children & Nature Network How Green Schoolyards Create Economic Value
 | Nature-filled schoolyards – or green schoolyards – provide a wealth of well-documented benefits for children’s health, well-being and learning. A growing number of communities also recognize the role of green schoolyards in supporting climate resilience. And there’s another key benefit. A new report, “How Green Schoolyards Create Economic Value,” authored by former Federal Reserve economist Rob Grunewald, outlines the economic returns that can accompany investments in greening school grounds. Read the report HERE. |
6. YMCA: The Nature of the Outdoors: Stronger Youth Development Through Exploration
 | This groundbreaking study examines the Skills for Thriving development of over 5,000 young people in outdoor programs across multiple states, comparing their growth to peers in other programs. While all different types of programming promote these capacities, the results of this study are striking, showing that engagement in outdoor programs significantly boosts Skills for Thriving, particularly among male and Latine youth, who form deeper connections with peers and mentors. These findings demonstrate the benefits of the outdoors in cultivating a Positive Youth Development culture that enhances growth. This has significant implications for out-of-school programs and highlights ways using the outdoors more intentionally could redefine youth development leading to better mental well-being, stronger relationships, and greater educational and employment engagement for youth today. Read the report HERE. |
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