About
EarthWalk Vermont, founded in 2005, is a non-profit community and nature-based education organization located in Plainfield, Vermont.
Our Mission is to inspire and empower children, families and communities to reconnect with and care for one another and the Earth through long-term community and nature-based mentoring.
EarthWalk offers year-round programs, including: EarthWalk Village School; Teen Land Project: EarthGirls and EarthScouts after-school programs; Summer Camps; Teacher workshops; School and Community Partnership programs, and multi-generational seasonal Village Festivals.
EarthWalk’s educational approach, called Cultural Mentoring, is shared and practiced in over 80 schools in this country and many more across continents, and is documented in Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature, co-authored by Jon Young.
Jon Young, founder of Wilderness Awareness School in Duval Washington has combined the teachings of many earth-based cultures from around the world, along with tools of modern field ecology, to create this powerful Cultural Mentoring model. Jon was mentored by Tom Brown Jr. for 7 years, who had been mentored in the “old ways” of nature and survival by an Apache Scout, named “Grandfather”. These cultural teachings were passed along for many generations through grandmothers, aunts and uncles deeply connected to community and the Earth.
In 2006, EarthWalk invited Jon Young to lead a weekend workshop at Goddard College in Plainfield. He spoke about EarthWalk building a foundation for learning:
“What happens at EarthWalk, once a week, will build brain patterns that will give them strength in every other thing they do. That’s the thing to keep in mind. It will build a foundation for learning that will do great things for them.”
Through this holistic approach to education, EarthWalk students experience interdependent relationships through long-term mentoring, immersion in the natural world, naturalist and outdoor community living skills, traditional teachings, songs and stories. The skills, knowledge and traditions from earth-based cultures around the world are woven together within a caring and supportive community. It is the culture we are creating that becomes the most powerful mentor and guides the EarthWalk Learning Journey.
Our core education programs are designed to be long-term, meeting once weekly throughout the school year. This means that students have the opportunity to develop consistent and progressively comfortable relationships with the natural world and their community of fellow learners. Our student-centered curriculum honors each child individually while encouraging them to take direct responsibility for their learning at EarthWalk. We believe that children who develop strong relationships with one another and the Earth will grow up to become powerful stewards of our human and natural communities.
