Diversity Education in Nature Student Workbook - Available Today!
Watch our webinar that we presented for the North American Association for Environmental Education here.
What if nature could help us better understand diversity, belonging, and human relationships?
In this episode of the Outdoor Education Podcast, Rob is joined by Dan Kreisberg and Camille Simone Edwards, co-creators of Diversity Education in Nature (DEIN). Together, they explore how the natural world can serve as a powerful lens for teaching equity, empathy, and community.
Dan and Camille share how simple outdoor experiences, can open the door to deeper conversations about identity, inclusion, and what it really means to belong. They unpack the idea of “brave spaces” over “safe spaces,” the importance of starting with low-stakes conversations, and why this work is less about quick results and more about planting seeds for long-term change.
The conversation also dives into the realities of doing DEI work in outdoor education today, from barriers to access and representation to the importance of authenticity, vulnerability, and facilitation skills.
This episode is full of practical insights for educators, facilitators, and anyone interested in using the outdoors as a space for meaningful human connection. April 23, 2026, LISTEN HERE.
Picture books are a fantastic tool for teaching learners, and they're not just for early childhood learners. Children of all ages can benefit from hearing picture books and seeing their illustrations, and they can be especially beneficial for teaching science with your elementary-aged learners.
In today's episode, Dan Kriesberg talks about picture books for 4th graders and beyond and how he used picture books to teach even into middle school. He talks about what he looks for in quality picture books for older students and how he's used them to enhance his teaching.
You'll definitely want to hit play to hear these intriguing ideas and picture book suggestions! Also, make sure to listen to the end of the episode to hear an update about the show. April 25, 2026, LISTEN HERE.
Since we began teaching our Diversity Education in Nature (DEIN) workshops, we have often been asked, “Why are you going outside to discuss diversity, equity, and inclusion?” These quotes from young participants help explain why. So does an anecdote from a recent workshop we taught. After a walk with students through a local nature preserve, we sat down to review the ecological interrelationships we had just seen. One student brought up how animals, even in the most remote part of the world, still feel the impacts of human actions. Another connected this to a war’s impact on all people, even if far away, which led to a conversation on how to help refugees. Then, another student stopped to ask, “How did we get from talking about nature to people fighting in a war?”, at which point a peer chimed in to explain, “We are just following the interrelationships like a food chain.” Read the full article.