Christopher "Creek" Iversen grew up across the Catskills in Otsego County, but has lived most of his life in the mid-Hudson Valley where he worked as a naturalist, environmental educator, summer camp co-coordinator, and progressive teacher before becoming a sustainable community farmer.  Creek taught natural science and music at the Randolph School of Wappingers Falls, an experiential school dedicated to the greatest possible self-fulfillment of every child. In the 1990's Creek was the Resident Naturalist at John Burroughs Sanctuary in West Park.  Creek transitioned from teaching to farming in 2008, beginning as an apprentice at Common Ground Farm in Beacon.  He has also managed farms at Sylvester Manor Educational Farm in Shelter Island, Brook Farm Project in New Paltz, and Whirligig Farm in Hurley, always working hard with his crew and extended farm family to incorporate education, music and the arts, and community celebrations into the life of the farm. Creek is the co-founder of the Seed Song Farm & Center in Kingston NY.

Karen Hadley began serving as instructional coach for elementary social studies in the Onteora Central School district three years ago after 20 years as a classroom teacher.  Her primary objective is to adapt and update the NYS Social Studies Resource Toolkit to fit the students and teachers in our district. Karen models and coaches teachers using this content and the inquiry method of instruction, supported by primary sources and civic engagement.  She has also developed reading resource libraries for grades K-3 and 4-6 to support New York State's new Culturally Responsive Sustaining Education Framework, and to promote justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (J.E.D.I.).  

Laura Wyeth is a horticulturist and educator whose mission is to help people connect with and understand plants, particularly the plants that make up our local biodiversity. She is a Lecturer in Biology at SUNY New Paltz, teaching courses in botany and managing the campus greenhouse where she mentors student interns in the art and science of growing plants.

Samrat Pathania is a former software engineer who currently teaches mathematics, physics, and computer science at Wallkill High School in Wallkill, New York. He is a New York State Master Teacher Emeritus and co-founder of the Educator Collective for Environmental Justice. Samrat is a passionate advocate for inquiry-based and climate solutions-centered STEM education, inside and outside the classroom. He is co-author of A Full Axiomatic Development of High School Geometry, a graduate level mathematics textbook. Samrat is the sole winner of the 2017 STEM Teacher Scholarship from the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation He is also a clean energy coach with New Yorkers for Clean Power and has presented many talks and workshops on practical climate solutions. He lives in New Paltz, NY with his family in a net-zero home. 

Scott Beall has enjoyed nearly 30 years experience in K-12 classroom teaching in mathematics, Music, sustainability and climate, STEM program designs and interdisciplinary studies.  He holds a masters degree in mathematics education from Stanford University and has worked extensively as a professional developer for K-12 teachers internationally and throughout the United States.  Throughout his career, and as lead presenter and program designer for six summer institutes in the Children's Environmental Literacy Foundation, Mr. Beall has worked to implement his vision and model of education curricular reform (www.noboundary.org) toward holistic interdisciplinary pedagogy, systems thinking, ethics, youth empowerment programs and sustainability.  He has worked as an adjunct professor in graduate programs and is the author of a ground breaking curricular publication integrating music and mathematics--Functional Melodies (Key Curriculum Press).