You actually need the ecosystem piece, which you are developing. But ultimately, it needs to be institutionalized. It does have to get into the school system and institutionalized through the government.

When I went to school, nobody talked about the environment. If I went to school today, most people talk about the environment and it’s certainly important in our educational programs and for the government, the public and business.

The research is pretty clear that experiential learning, especially when it comes to democracy, is absolutely key. Well-being promotes well-doing. So if you are well as a human, you will be a good learner.

We have to figure out a way to create opportunities not only for people to experience these places in situ, but out of situ, exactly like what Nature Labs is doing by bringing the parks stories to educators, and thus to students. It’s a really beautiful cycle that needs to happen.

That’s what you’re doing a really good job on – nature literacy. As a youth, what I find with my peers is that the opportunities for nature literacy in particular are essentially non existent. And youth aren’t engaged because we think our teachers aren’t engaged.

I think what you’re talking about in the classroom is very heartening because people don’t learn this naturally. We’re taught to be – we’re wired – to be attracted to really strong, polarized views. If you can teach kids how to do [the opposite], around what seems like a very benign topic like nature, then it gives me a lot of hope for other polarized issues that really need attention.

We just don’t have the programs here that are necessary to really teach people about the outdoors. When I was in high school, I went on a field trip to a prison and the court house. And that was in my civics class. We’re not really encouraging our students here to get out and see nature.

By the time students come to university, they have this way of thinking about the world that can be a really hard learning curve for undergraduate students to halt they way they’ve been thinking throughout elementary and secondary school and flip that on it’s head to learn in a really different – on the land – way.

The only way to factor those things in is to do initiatives that help people to realize that web of life.

You guys coming here has really got us to look at things in a different way as well. We really value what you guys are doing. I think students will take so much from this program and I think Mount Robson is such a special place to do this.

In many cases we could say – hey, that’s what education is about. Education is really taking our collective experience and handing it down to the younger generation.

[The stories] read like you’re having a fun conversation that makes learning about wildlife cool without an adult trying to shove “cool” at you from the 70s.

I more deeply understand our planet’s ecosystem and how every last thing here has a role and a significance and a connection to everything else that is amazing and miraculous and fills me with deep gratitude and awe for Earth.

What do we need to do in terms of changing how our young people learn? What kind of skills are people learning? Are we organizing our education system in the optimal way to make sure that young people have the skills that they need to be able to roll with the punches in a rapidly changing world?

Nature Labs is an opportunity for young people in classes at large, right across the country, to be able to explore these tough questions and these tough issues through something that will allow them to go on a journey and learn through these different lenses.

Nature Labs gave me an object and goal to look forward to each and every day. And sometimes I would even think about my project at random times throughout the day.