How does one become a nature journaling educator? And how can we support our educators to keep doing what they’re doing? Please join this episode of the Nature Journal Show where Marley interviews three other educators – Bethan Burton, Melinda Nakagawa, and Amaya Shreeve – who like him are on Patreon. Find out how Bethan, Melinda, and Amaya decided to become nature journaling educators, as well as how you can support them in their work.
What is Patreon?
Patreon is a membership platform where you can support the work of a naturalist, educator, artist, or other creator who inspires you. It’s an excellent way for educators who are creating free educational content to get support. Patrons can contribute either monthly or yearly, for as little as $5 or as much as they choose. Some Patreon members might set up tier systems, so that the more you contribute, the more exclusive benefits you get.
How can We support our Nature educators?
Nature education is sorely ignored in our society today. Most standard elementary and high schools do not offer classes on tracking, or gardening, or plant identification, or bird songs, or the countless other things we observe and experience when we are outdoors. Aside from Physical Education, most classes don’t go outdoors at all. So how are we supposed to connect with nature if we’re not given the opportunity to do so?
Nature educators are essential, yet undervalued. They are not yet accessible to everyone. This is why it is so important to support the ones who are here – the more we support them, the more that encourages us as a society to value our nature teachers and therefore nature itself.
First of all, take their classes. Learn with them. Just by spending time with a nature educator, you are validating their work and encouraging others to do the same.
Second, if it is possible for you to help support an educator – especially if you have gained something valuable from their classes, workshops, or materials – please consider doing so. Educators working outside a school system might not have an official source of funding – many are self-made and trying to start their own businesses in a market that is not totally there. Yet they are performing a vital service for many of us: helping us connect with nature and, often, nurturing our own health along the way.
Bethan’s Story
“Everyone does it differently.”
When you have a kid, you don’t have a lot of alone time. But Bethan has found a way to balance, as well as include her growing son in her nature journal practice. She has been keeping a field journal since she was in university in the early 2000s, and she returned to it later on as a self-care practice. To learn more about Bethan’s incredible story, please check out her earlier interview with Marley: https://youtu.be/n-UIj4lYDrA
Bethan’s teaching style is to listen. Gentle, humble, and compassionate, she helps beginners and regulars alike to open up not only to nature but also to their own processes and emotional experiences within nature. As an educators, she has learned that you can have an activity where everyone is journaling the same thing – but the participants will always journal it in an array of different ways. She encourages beginners when she tells them that their nature journaling is not about art – rather, it’s about exploration, connection, observation, and curiosity.
Bethan is the creator of the Journaling with Nature weekly podcast, where she sits down with nature journalers from all over the world to have inspirational, deep conversations about each of their journeys. She works on it mostly at night, while in the daytime she is a full-time mother to an adorable, rambunctious toddler. A person who brings the global community together, Bethan also created and leads the yearly International Nature Journaling Week, an event where nature journalers from all walks of life can come together to explore the building blocks of nature journaling and beyond.
Despite the enormous amount of work both her podcast and the International Nature Journaling Week take, Bethan offers access to both for free. She does this work because she knows people deeply need it, and she cares about what she does and about helping people. By supporting her through Patreon, we make it possible for Bethan to continue her podcast, to keep hosting the incredible International Nature Journaling Week, and to support her family.
To see Bethan’s podcast, please visit her website: https://www.journalingwithnature.com/podcast
To learn more about the International Nature Journaling Week that Bethan started, including the workshop recordings from 2021, please visit here: https://www.naturejournalingweek.com (or join her group on Facebook, International Nature Journaling Week).
To support Bethan’s work, please join her Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/journalingwithnature
Melinda’s Journey
“We start where we’re at, wherever we are.”
Since joining the nature journaling community, Melinda has found herself searching for opportunities to slow down and be present in nature. With a background as a marine biologist, Melinda knows it is too easy to stress out over data and getting that “perfect page”. She started her first nature journal back in 1998, while she was leading whale watching tours – she kept a sketchbook of the birds she saw as a way to learn them.
As someone who craves a deeper connection with nature, Melinda’s teaching style reflects this. In each of her classes, she creates a nurturing, warm space where people can let down their walls. Melinda has learned that it’s not about gaining knowledge but rather about learning how to see. She would want to tell a beginner to be gentle with themself – to be mindful of the harsh inner critic everyone has and remember that this is about learning.
In her endeavors to make nature journaling accessible to everyone, Melinda offers small group online and in-person nature journaling courses, both free and paid, through her company Spark in Nature. In 2019, she started the Monterey Bay Nature Journal Club, which has grown during the pandemic to become a flourishing online community. If you love Melinda’s work and you want to be a part of the community she has created, you can be!
To learn more about Melinda’s work, including her classes and private lessons, please visit her website: https://sparkinnature.com
To listen to Bethan’s podcast conversation with Melinda, please visit here.
Marley’s previous interview with Melinda: https://marleypeifer.com/the-nature-journal-show/nature-journaler-interview-melinda/
To support Melinda and her work, please join her Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sparkinnature
Amaya’s Adventures
“Journal as much as you can!”
When we imagine an educator, most of us probably picture an adult. But you don’t have to be a grown-up to be an educator. At the time of this posting, Amaya is 16 years old and has been helping younger students learn how to nature journal since she was 12. Amaya carries her journal everywhere, so that she can have nature journaling experiences everywhere – such as at a restaurant where she saw a lady with a pet raccoon. This mindset infuses Amaya’s teaching style with a readiness to always engage – to make nature journaling a lifestyle instead of just a hobby. She would tell a beginner to nature journal everything, even if it seems silly.
As a homeschooled student, Amaya began nature journaling because her mom told her to. Amaya’s mother, Crystal Shreeve, uses nature journaling as their science class. For the longest time, nature journaling was considered to be “Amaya’s thing” in their family, but Amaya worked to help her youngest siblings have their own relationships with nature journaling. From those beginnings, her teaching has grown exponentially – she helps other children from her homeschooling group and has led workshops at International Nature Journaling Week and other venues. She says she didn’t realize how much joy it would bring her to be a teacher – to see a child geek out over the same things as her.
Amaya has recently begun creating educational YouTube videos with tips and tricks for nature journalers, imbued with her signature playful energy. She has also started an official nature journaling zine, The Junior Journaler Nature Magazine, which you can read here. In her magazine, you can see works from other youth nature journalers from all over the world. She and a fellow youth journaler, Zenya, have begun the first official Nature Journal Club for Teens. Amaya is a creator, an innovation, with a very bright future ahead for her as an educator and inspirer of nature journalers.
To learn more about Amaya’s work, please visit her YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Noendtothewonder/videos or follow her on Instagram: @Noendtothewonder
To listen to Bethan’s podcast conversation with Amaya, please visit here.
Marley’s previous interview with Amaya: https://marleypeifer.com/the-nature-journal-show/nature-journal-homeschool-interview-with-amaya/
To support Amaya’s work, please join her Patreon: www.patreon.com/Noendtothewonder
Just getting started with nature journaling?
Need more tips? If so, check out this post. It will walk you through how to nature journal in 10 steps.
Need help choosing nature journaling supplies? Check out Nature Journaling Supplies: What You Need and What You Do Not
