In this episode, Marina reflects on power, responsibility, and duty of care. As November marks a season of endings and beginnings, she looks beneath the surface of our systems — from education to environment, and asks what happens when we stop paying attention, and what it costs us when we do.

This conversation traces the threads between integrity and innocence, corruption and accountability, and how our personal and professional ethics shape the wider ecology we live within.

Key ideas explored

• The uneasy link between wealth, power, and moral compromise
• November as a time for renewal
• How concentrated power in health, education, and business leads us to protect ourselves instead of our purpose
• Teachers and leaders navigating the “topside world” while tending what lies beneath — our own psychology and hidden systems
• Moving beyond naïveté without losing hope or care
• Reclaiming duty of care — asking whether our systems live up to the ethics we teach
• Practicing stewardship: leaving no trace, enhancing biodiversity, and restoring the flow of responsibility

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-76-the-cost-of-looking-away/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this episode, I’m speaking with Ash Smith, the founder of Windrush Against Sewage Pollution. A retired Detective Superintendent, former angler and scuba diver, Ash has spent the last eight years investigating the truth about what’s happening in our rivers.

His love for the natural world, combined with a deep sense of justice, led him to gather a team of committed people from different disciplines to form one of the most effective groups holding water companies and regulators to account.

In our conversation, Ash shares what’s really going on with our rivers, the scale of sewage pollution, and the failures of government and regulatory bodies to protect our waterways.

This is a passionate, evidence-based discussion, grounded in data that you can find on the WASP website. The Windrush itself flows for 65 kilometers from Gloucestershire into the Thames - but this story reaches far beyond one river. It speaks to the health of our ecosystems, and to our own health as well.

Topics include:

• A vivid picture of what a living, healthy river once was — and how the “new normal” hides a quiet collapse.
• How WASP (Windrush Against Sewage Pollution) turns citizen science and data analysis into undeniable proof of illegal pollution.
• The shocking reality of regulators who no longer investigate — and water companies marking their own homework.
• What happens when public services are sold off and profit replaces purpose.
• The money trail — how customers fund dividends while private shareholders drain the system.
• Why some water companies are now in “special measures” and what real accountability could look like
• Ash’s journey from detective superintendent to river defender — following the evidence wherever it leads.
• The quiet power of ordinary people who refuse to look away.
• How anger can become fuel for change rather than despair.
• Practical ways to take action — join with others, use local data, and make enough noise to tip the balance

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-75-the-river-of-truth-with-ash-smith/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this reflective solo episode, Marina explores how the changing seasons, our ancestral roots, and the social history of education help us question what learning really means today.

We journey from postwar Britain to the present classroom, asking how we can reimagine education as something alive, relational, and grounded in nature.

Topics include:

• Gratitude for autumn, the changing light, and small comforts that sustain us.
• Reflection on the natural cycle of endings and beginnings and what it teaches us about renewal.
• The symbolism of the elder and birch trees as reminders of wisdom, letting go, and new growth.
• Honouring ancestors and recognising what we’ve inherited through culture and family.
• The importance of doing inner work that leads to outer change in our communities and classrooms.
• Revisiting postwar Britain to understand how education emerged as a social contract for fairness and democracy.
• The 1944 Butler Act and its vision for universal education and rebuilding society after the war.
• Remembering that education is a system, while learning is an organic, lifelong process that transforms who we are.
• The tension between authority and shared power in schools and what that means for children’s voices.
• A call to reimagine education as something rooted in wellbeing, curiosity, and connection to the living world.

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-74-what-is-education-for-now

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

My guest today is Suzanne Welch, Education Partnership Manager at the RSPB, the UK’s largest nature conservation charity with over a million members, and in this episode she explores what it would mean to make nature a right in education and why it’s time to rethink the purpose.

Suzanne has spent decades in outdoor learning - from taking inner-city children to the Thames foreshore, where subjects like science, history and geography came alive, to now convening national partnerships and influencing education policy. Her work is driven by a vision that every child should have access to high-quality learning in, with and for nature.

In this episode Suzanne Welch...

• Challenges the outdated knowledge-based model and invites a shift toward enquiry and relational learning.
• Reflects on her early work taking inner-city children to the River Thames and witnessing their transformation outdoors.
• Emphasises joy, curiosity and presence as the foundations of meaningful learning.
• Highlights how outdoor experiences naturally connect subjects like science, history, art and geography.
• Argues that learning shouldn’t be siloed because our minds don’t operate in compartments.
• Points to the early years sector as an example of where outdoor and child-led learning already works well.
• Questions about why these principles fade as children move through the education system.
• Explains how assessment and measurement culture have narrowed what counts as learning.
• Calls for systemic rather than incremental change and a national conversation about the true purpose of education.
• Advocates for a statutory right for every child to learn in with and for nature.
• Notes that equitable access currently depends on postcode school leadership and teacher enthusiasm.
• Ends with a simple invitation start with one outdoor lesson listen to young people and let hope lead change.

Shownotes: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/making-nature-a-right-in-education-suzanne-welch/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this closing episode of Season 9, I’m exploring something that feels urgent in our times: the difference between education and learning.

Education is often about systems, metrics, and tests — but learning is about life itself. It happens in forests, green spaces, kitchens, and communities. It’s experiential, embodied, relational, and remembered because we live it.

With the rise of AI, increasing mental health challenges, and the fast pace of our lives, we need to ask: what skills truly matter now, and how can we reimagine learning so every young person leaves not just with knowledge, but with self-worth, connection, and a sense of agency?

Topics include:

• The urgent difference between education and learning, and why it matters now more than ever.
• Why formal schooling often leaves young people without confidence, agency, or self-worth.
• The danger of convergent thinking and the value of divergent, creative, and adaptive skills.
• Experiential learning: Why we remember fire-lighting, foraging, and play more than worksheets.
• The principles of autism-informed, trauma-informed, and consent-based practice as foundations for real learning.
• The Outdoor Teacher Approach: Play-based, body-led, and relational rather than hierarchical.
• The opportunity (and risk) of the UK’s new climate curriculum, and why connection, not just knowledge, is key.
• The Children’s Fire principle and what it means to educate with future generations — all children, human and more-than-human, at the heart.

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-72-learning-for-life

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this episode of the Wild Minds Podcast, I’m in conversation with Mac Macartney, a storyteller, leader, and founder of Embercombe, exploring what it means to live and lead in service to life.

In this far-reaching conversation, we explore The Children’s Fire — an ancient principle that no law, decision, or action should harm the young of any species, and how it might transform leadership, education, and our relationship with the natural world.

We talk about education rooted in the simple yet radical commitment that no child should leave school without feeling good about who they are, and the power of play as an antidote to a culture that leaves so many children, and adults, masking their pain and feeling worthless beneath the surface.

Topics include:

• Exploring The Children’s Fire — the ancient principle that no decision should harm the young of any species.
• Reimagining education so no child leaves school without feeling good about themselves.
• Unpacking the hubris of superiority — how our systems consistently enforce it.
• The power of play and nature connection as antidotes to hopelessness and masking how we truly feel.
• Insights from Mac’s leadership company on redefining the purpose of business — beyond profit and growth — and valuing well-rounded human beings.
• Reflections on indigenous wisdom, community ownership, and leadership rooted in service rather than self-interest.
• A call to rethink wealth, power, and responsibility so that resources and decisions serve the many, not the few.
• An invitation to imagine a more joyful, courageous, and humane society.

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-71-mac-macartney-interview

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this episode of Wild Minds, I'm exploring what it’s like to have big questions that don’t always fit into your job title. Whether you’re a teacher, therapist, or just someone who feels things deeply, this conversation is about the risk, and importance, of staying open, curious, and honest in times of change.

Topics include:

• What it feels like to hide parts of yourself in professional spaces
• The fear of sounding “too out there” or being seen as unprofessional
• Why curiosity and wonder matter more than ever, especially in helping roles
• How feelings and intuition often get pushed aside—even though they guide so much of our real understanding
• A look at where our sense of mind and consciousness might actually come from
• How Indigenous wisdom and quantum science both challenge the idea that we’re separate from nature
• What happens in our body when we feel awe or connection
• Why being open-minded isn’t soft or silly—it’s essential for making sense of the world

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-70-scientific-enough-to-wonder

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this powerful and expansive conversation, Pam Montgomery (teacher, author, and plant spirit ally) invites us into a deeper relationship with the natural world.

We explore what it means to communicate with plants, how to trust our intuition, and how ancient ways of knowing are being remembered at this time of global rebirth.

In this episode....

• Through personal story, scientific insights, and spiritual practice, Pam helps us reimagine our role in the web of life.
• Pam’s grandmother introduced her to the idea of talking with plants – a formative influence that shaped her lifelong path.
• Communication with plants isn’t imaginary; it’s relational, vibrational, and increasingly supported by emerging science.
• Devices like those from Damanhur allow us to hear plants "sing," revealing their responsiveness to intention and environment.
• True communication happens through resonance, light, and sound – not just words – with the heart as the central sensing organ.
• We are vibrational beings too; like plants, we can tune into our environment and one another on subtle energetic levels.
• Pam describes “first voice” – the intuitive message that arrives before the rational mind interrupts – and how she trains herself to listen to it.
• Slowing down and entering the present moment opens a “portal” to meaningful encounters with nature.
• Nettle is explored as a plant ally that wakes us up and demands presence, while yarrow helps with energetic boundaries and healing.
• Nature responds when we become coherent – as our nervous systems settle, the world around us comes closer.
• Bonding with nature releases oxytocin, the “love hormone,” which initiates the body’s restorative response.
• We are already in relationship with plants through our breath – consciously acknowledging this can be a gateway to deeper connection.
• Pam speaks of a global rebirth and the possibility of a “new earth” rooted in interbeing, where all life can thrive together.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-69-plant-communication-with-pam-montgomery/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

In this solo episode, I'm reflecting on the quiet strength it takes to pause, listen, and allow our inner world to guide how we show up - especially in uncertain times.

This season is taking an interesting turn as I find myself paying closer attention to my inner life - to sensations, to moment-by-moment shifts, and to the subtle places where I might be reacting. I’m learning to be alongside feelings, not rushing past them, but staying curious.

In this episode, Marina explores:

• Beginning with a moment of feeling off-track, and the choice to stop and listen inwardly.
• Reflecting on the value of not knowing - and how uncertainty can be fertile ground.
• How discomfort is offered not as something to fix, but as a doorway to something deeper.
• An honest look at how ego can subtly shape even well-intentioned work.
• Inviting us to stay rooted in the body, in the earth, and in our own deep sensing
• How grief and disorientation are acknowledged as natural responses to collapsing systems.
• How there’s reassurance that we don’t need all the answers in order to stay in service.
• How true leadership may mean staying with the unknown rather than rushing through it.
• Reflecting on Joseph Cornell’s approach - beginning from a felt state that sets the tone for learning, and how Flow Learning starts from inner alignment
• Ending with an invitation to keep listening to the thread of life - and letting it guide the way

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-68-leading-with-our-inner-life/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate

Free Course in Forest School Activities

Try our online training for free: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/free

In today's episode I have the deep honour of welcoming Joseph Bharat Cornell - a world-renowned author, educator, naturalist, and pioneer in the field of nature connection.

Joseph’s Sharing Nature books have sold over a million copies and been translated into twenty-five languages, sparking what’s been called a worldwide revolution in nature education.

Back in the 1970s, Joseph pioneered an experiential, heart-centered approach to learning in nature, now known as Flow Learning™.

This transformative model, along with his joyful and accessible activities, has touched the lives of countless children and adults across the world - from inner-city classrooms to remote wilderness trails. His latest work, Deep Nature Play, continues this mission, guiding us into a deeper sense of wholeness, creativity, and connection through immersive play.

In this deeply inspiring conversation with Joseph Bharat Cornell, we explore the power of nature connection, experiential learning, and the inner stillness that transforms how we live, teach, and relate to the world. Meditation, yoga philosophy, and other wisdom traditions  greatly influenced his work.

Joseph has lived in the Ananda Community as a monk and teacher since 1975 and in this episode, we discuss how...

• Joseph shares how moments of stillness and inner joy led him to a life of nature connection
• The natural world evokes a sense of reverence and belonging when we engage through feeling rather than intellect
• Flow Learning™ offers a four-stage process that supports deep, meaningful experiences in nature
• Joyful play helps quiet the ego and allows children and adults to be fully present
• In states of deep play and nature immersion, there is a diminished sense of ego — attention shifts from self to experience
• Experiential learning is transformative — people retain the feeling of an experience long after facts are forgotten
• Studies show that while most information is quickly lost, the emotional tone of an experience is remembered
• Lasting learning happens when the whole being is involved — body, heart, and mind together
• True education begins with experience; understanding follows naturally
• Facilitators need to cultivate their own inner stillness in order to guide others
• Activities like “Build a Tree” and “Camera Game” help participants enter a state of reverence
• Calm feeling allows for deeper perception and connection than reactive emotion
• Nature is egoless - being outdoors supports inner clarity and connection
• Play is a universal language that encourages openness across all ages
• Experiences like “Interview with Nature” use imagination to build empathy and awareness
• Reflection and storytelling help integrate and deepen nature-based learning
• Meditation and inner practice are essential parts of Joseph’s work and life
• Hope comes from developing inner awareness — our calm presence can subtly influence the world.

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/joseph-cornell-podcast/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!

This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. 

Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate