Coconut Thinking

What happens when we tune into sound to make sense of our world? How might noticing sounds and silences tell us more about place?

In this episode, Charlotte and I speak with Melissa Pons. Melissa is a field recordist and award-winning sound designer based in Portugal. Throughout her years of practice, she has independently released field recording albums, music compositions upon commission and her work has been streamed and featured in several media, like the BBC, NPR, The Guardian and Bandcamp Daily. Her personal work orbits around the more-than-human world and our complex relationship with it, and wild animals are a big source of inspiration for thinking, listening, writing, making music and the landscapes she seeks. Currently she’s working as a curator and podcast producer at the streaming platform earth.fm and works seasonally with sound design for audio dramas at Hemlock Creek Productions. We discuss:

🥥 How sound forces us to slow down, to take time to notice, in ways that photos cannot, creating a different kind of embodied experience;

🥥 How sounds tell stories of what is there and what is no longer there, which provides data that we aren't used to noticing;

🥥 The relationship between people and place to sound, and the stories these tell.

This is the first episode in our two-part series on sound. We hope that educators will consider sound over written text as means of learning, feeling, and expression.

Check us out www.coconut-thinking.com.

How might Biomimicry help us understand the context of a problem in order for us to respond locally, not with one-size-fits-all solutions?

In this episode, I speak with Bronwen Main and Frank Burridge. Bronwen is a landscape architect and co-founder of Main Studio, where she focuses on sustainable, nature-inspired designs that transform urban spaces. Her work emphasizes ecological restoration, community well-being, and biodiversity, creating environments that encourage people’s communion with nature. Bronwen also contributes as a lecturer and mentor, sharing her expertise with emerging architects. Through her innovative projects and community engagement, she promotes environmentally responsible design practices that blend aesthetics with ecological integrity and sustainable urban living.

Frank is an architect and co-founder of Main Studio, a creative practice that blends architecture, art, and landscape design with ecological and community-focused principles. As a Teaching Associate at Monash University and a registered architect with the Architects Registration Board of Victoria, Frank is known for his innovative, sustainable projects. His work includes high-profile projects like Zac Efron’s planned “Futurecave” in New South Wales, embodying his commitment to creating functional, environmentally harmonious spaces.

Bronwen and Frank are the architects (along with Ibuku) who are designing Green School' Biomimicry for Regenerative Design Lab, a first of its kind space in a K-12 school, where learners of all ages come together to explore and apply biomimicry principles for regenerative design We discuss:

🥥 How biomimicry provides hope because we learn [from/as/with] Nature, which has already tested out infinite problems for over 3.8 billion years (at least!);

🥥 The design process behind Green School's Biomimicry for Regenerative Design Lab, in which students and educators participated, as did the Natural world and the contact of Bali, education, and the current state of the world;

🥥 How Biomimicry allows us to understand our place in Place, which is fundamental to opening up new possibilities for learning in schools and beyond.

Check us out: www.coconut-thinking.com

Learn more about Green School Bali: www.greenschool.org/bali

How might biomimicry be an ethical approach to a thriving planet rather than just another way to make cool products for money?

In this episode, I speak with Henry Dicks. Henry is an environmental philosopher and philosopher of technology. He holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford and lectures in environmental philosophy and ethics at University Jean Moulin Lyon 3 and Shanghai University and in the philosophy of biomimicry at the Institut Supérieur de Design de Saint-Malo. We discuss:

🥥 Nature as measure, not in the qualitative sense, but rather as an ethical compass that guides us to respond in ways to life

🥥 Biomimicry as a move away from anthropocentrism through the reconsiderations of our relationships as Nature.

🥥 Biomimicry as a model for AI and the possibilities expanding toward more-than-human intelligences in AI.

This is the second of a 3-part series on Biomimicry, looking at the relational, ethical, and process of Biomimicry.

Check us out: www.coconut-thinking.com

How might we create participatory, community-based technologies inspired from Nature with the interests of life in mind?

In this episode, I speak with Daniel Kinzer. Daniel is the founder of Pacific Blue Studios, a network of youth-powered exploration, design and innovation studios leveraging biomimicry, traditional ecological knowledge and conservation technologies and focused on co-creating thriving, regenerative communities across Hawai'i and around our blue planet. He is an educator, designer, adventurer and ocean lover, and has spent over a decade living and learning across more than 70 countries and all 7 continents, including an expedition to Antarctica as a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow with National Geographic. We discuss:

🥥 Being comfortable in the absence of language and tuning into how our human and other-than-human kin communicate;

🥥 Biomimicry and indigenous knowledge ask us to quiet our cleverness, having humility, and neither is for anybody to own, run away from, or have exclusive to anyone;

🥥 Eco-anxiety as “I don’t know who I am anymore,” as ego-anxiety.

This is the first of a 3-part series on Biomimicry, looking at the relational, ethical, and process of Biomimicry.

Check us out: www.coconut-thinking.com

How might knowledge be co-created as a process of relationships between humans, other-than-humans, and the land?

In this episode, I speak with Tyson Yunkaporta. Tyson is an Aboriginal scholar, founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deakin University in Melbourne, and author of Sand Talk and most recently Right Story, Wrong Story. His work focuses on applying Indigenous methods of inquiry to resolve complex issues and explore global crises. Tyson currently works at the Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University as Senior Lecturer Indigenous Knowledges. We discuss:

🥥 Transknowledging as interactions between human/human and human/other-than-human that are co-created by place and time;

🥥 The "gold rush on Indigenous knowledge" and how we might work with and through the tensions this creates to learn from each other;

🥥 Enlightenment 2.0: its shortcuts, (false) promises, and how the great re-branding.

Check us out: www.coconut-thinking.com

How might ethics world the futures our generation will leave behind? How might education respond within the climate context?

In this episode, I speak with Peter Sutoris. Peter is an environmental anthropologist and assistant professor in climate and development at the University of Leeds’ Sustainability Research Institute. He is the author of the books “Visions of Development” and “Educating for the Anthropocene,” and coauthor of the forthcoming “Development Reimagined.” He is a researcher, writer and educator, and has spent over a decade working on issues of education, health and social development. We discuss:

🥥 How we might confront the underlying patterns of extraction rather than hope for technology to make tweaks in the existing system;

🥥 What happens to ethics if we care about what life was before I was born and what will happen after we die?

🥥 What needs to change in our thinking, in our stories, and what might the system accept and what might it resist.

Check us out www.coconut-thinking. com

How might cultivating local relationships with humans and the more-than-human contribute to overall planetary health?

In this episode, I speak with Pim Martens. Pim has a PhD in applied mathematics and biological sciences. He is a professor of Planetary Health and dean of Maastricht University College Venlo. Pim has been a professor of Sustainable Development for 18 years and is currently the project leader and principal investigator of several projects related to planetary health, sustainability science and education, and human-animal-nature relationships. Pim Martens is a scientist and founder of AnimalWise, a “think and do tank” integrating scientific knowledge and animal advocacy to bring about sustainable change in our relationship with animals. Furthermore, he was the founding Director of the Maastricht University Graduate School of Sustainability Science (MUST) and initiated the M.Sc. program in Sustainability Science and Policy. We discuss:

🥥 The importance of developing empathy for non-human animals for a kinder world, including between humans;

🥥 How sustainability and regeneration begin with how we treat all living things;

🥥 How planetary health might reframe how we understand the networks of our interconnections.

Check us out: www.coconut-thinking.com

How do we nurture radical human relationships through authentic stories of learning?

In this episode, I speak with Virgel Hammonds. Virgel is a nationally recognized leader in education innovation. He became CEO of the Aurora Institute in 2024, bringing over two decades of experience in learner-centered education. Formerly Chief Learning Officer at KnowledgeWorks, Virgel has partnered with national policymakers and local communities to redesign learning systems. He has also served as superintendent in Maine and high school principal in California, where he implemented personalized, mastery-based learning models. Virgel is an active board member for several educational organizations, continuing his mission to transform education for all learners.

The Aurora Institute is a pioneering organization focused on advancing competency-based education frameworks. It champions personalized, learner-centered approaches, ensuring students progress based on mastery rather than seat time. The institute collaborates with educators, policymakers, and communities to redesign learning systems, promoting equity and deeper learning for all students.

We discuss:

🥥 Shifting from school systems to communities of learning, recognizing learning as a 24/7, anywhere journey;

🥥 Listening to voices from the entire community to bring in local values, while creating connections with wider networks.

🥥 Showing up with authenticity in order to deepen our relationships, with courage and vulnerability.

Check us out www.coconut-thinking.com

You can find the Aurora Institute on https://aurora-institute.org/

How is place an emergent, relational experience, rather than a fixed location?

In this special episode, Charlotte and Benjamin speak alongside the sounds of Paris to create a conversation that includes the city. We come to Europe every couple of years to visit family, and this year we will also drop my son off to university. We recorded this episode in raw form, so we can be immersed in experience. We discuss:

🥥 How place creates the conditions for agency to emerge;

🥥 How learning experiences might be designed with emergence in mind, that is, with enabling constraints that nurture inquiry and the unexpected, without giving way to "anything goes;"

🥥 Specific examples of learner projects that have contributed to life and led to deeper learning (and yes, outcomes).

Come be part of this conversation that is alive with the city. When we listen to the stories around us, we appreciate that Nature is everywhere because we are Nature.

How might we commit to change in order to create conditions for deeper learning and put students first?

In this episode, I speak with Kyle Wagner. Kyle is an education consultant and founder of Transform Educational Consulting (TEC). He specializes in empowering schools to create socially, emotionally, and globally aware citizens through project-based learning. With over 20 years of experience, Kyle has worked with numerous schools worldwide, helping design more than 500 learning experiences. He previously served as the coordinator for Futures Academy at the International School of Beijing and as a project-based learning leader at High Tech High. Kyle is the author of "The Power of Simple," which provides strategies for school transformation. We discuss:

🥥 How changes in the physical environment can augment or constrain deeper learning;

🥥 How artifacts of learning are touch points in journeys of learning rather than ends in themselves;

🥥 How no matter where you are, or think you are, you can make a shift toward more student-centered learning.

Check us out www.coconut-thinking.com

And look Kyle up on https://transformschool.com/