We envision a new culture of experiential learning that fosters personal, collective and planetary well-being.
”“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
― Buckminster Fuller
1. Awe-Based Education
Awe-based learning is fueled by deep presence, curiosity, imagination, and experiential creativity.
Instead of learning about the world in the classroom, we learn in the world outside through mindful nature immersion, collaborative learning on teams and building projects to address local social, economic and environmental challenges.
2. Eco-Mindfulness Training
Eco-mindfulness involves the intentional daily cultivation of our most powerful self-transcendent emotions of awe, wonder and gratitude through mindful walking outside.
It helps cultivate a sense of deep embodied, reverence and interconnectedness with the living, breathing more-than-human world.
Origins
Our story began in 2015 when our founder Kyle Pearce started leading people on spirit quest adventures in the Coastal Mountains just north of Vancouver, British Columbia.
On these weekend adventures, participants could unplug from the modern world and fully immerse themselves in the natural wonders of the rainforest learning about the forest ecology, learning ecological-oriented mindfulness practices and sleeping under the stars.
Combining a passion for ancient history, mindfulness, forest bathing, stargazing, birdwatching and backcountry adventure, Kyle began experimenting with how to design and facilitate rites of passage and collective experiences where participants can make lifelong friends while cultivating a deeper sense of awe, wonder and reverence disconnected from the blinding lights of industrial civilization.
From there, it grew into regular experiential forest ecology and walking meditation workshops in local parks and then educational retreats in Western Canada and around the world.
Today, we offer awe-based education and eco-mindfulness training programs to train ecotourism guides, teachers and naturalists in North America, Central America and Western Europe.
Photo Gallery
A collection of photos from our experiential learning workshops and retreats around the world.
THE CHALLENGE
The Modern Sedentary Lifestyle Is At The Root of Declining Physical and Mental Well-Being
We live in strange times. We've become highly domesticated by the conveniences of the modern world, which has disconnected us from ourselves, community and the natural world.
Today, it's common for a person living in a highly-developed country to spend:
93%
Time spent being sedentary indoors
10+
hours a day sitting and staring at screen
4,000
steps walking per day, half of what's considered healthy
A Solution
20% Time For The Planet
What do you think would shift in this world if we decided to dedicate set aside 20% of our time for cultivating personal, collective and planetary well-being in natural world?
Imagine that our schools gave students one day a week for experiential learning outside with their head, hearts and hands. Time to spend collaborating with other students on nature-based projects for sustainability while developing passion for doing something constructive about planetary well-being.
And adults too could dedicate one day a week and just 20-30 minutes a day for mindful walking to unplug and spend more time outside learning, collaborating and developing a stronger appreciation for the natural world.
Our environment determines a big part of our experience and how we think, create and learn. If we’re going to tackle this growing ecological crisis, we need to get together and find solutions out in the real world and not just in books, classrooms, boardrooms and conferences.
Spending more time in nature not only shapes improves our thinking and helps us develop our ecological awareness, it can also significantly improve mental and physical health and be catalyst for spending quality time exploring with other people and building stronger communities.