Lecturers

Summer school lectures are listed in alphabetical order by surname.

Gaye Amus, FI
Gaye Amus is an environmental educator, consultant, TedX speaker, and founder of Learning In Nature Ltd. She is based in Helsinki, Finland. She is training educators internationally, contributing in conferences as well as giving seminars on nature pedagogy and outdoor education.  Gaye is a co-author of the book “Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share in Education: The Children in Permaculture Manual” (2018) and author of her recent book “Come Out and Play-A Learning Journey towards Nature Pedagogy” (2022).

Martina Březinová, CZ
Often stayed with her father in the workshop, first just watching and then putting her hand to work. After the birth of her son, she returned to wood and created together with him. She is the director of the kindergarten Lesmír in the North of Czech Republic, where she also works as a teacher and regularly does wood work with children. Günter Grün-Oostiga and Rudolf Hettich were a great inspiration for her. With Marek Vodička, she has attended several carving courses and they currently run carving courses for parents and children together. She is also leading the second year of the educational series The syllabary of working with wood, for which a book of the same name was published.

Kateřina Čiháková, CZ
Kateřina Čiháková is a graduate of Environmental Protection at the Faculty of Science, Charles University. She co-founded a forest kindergarten Pramínek. She works as a lecturer and methodologist at the Museum Říčany and teaches at the 2nd grade of the Primary School. She is a guarantor of Natural History at the National Pedagogical Institute, where she works on revisions of the Framework Educational Programmes. She is currently working on climate education and climate change communication in museums and similar institutions.

Gunter Grün-Oostinga, DE
Gunter is a qualified social pedagogue, nature educator and lecturer of Scandinavian Friluftsliv and traditional handicraft. Being nature educator is the most beautiful profession imaginable. ) Growing in former East-Germany, he spent every day out in the woods. It was free childhood in gardens, parks and forests, which inspired him later to take the guide training course as a "Vägleder i naturligt friluftsliv" in Sweden. Together with his wife Vera co-founded the first forest-after-school care center in Germany. With the organization "Gröninga" they offer courses and further training in nature education, education for sustainable development, nature therapy, Scandinavian "Friluftsliv" and traditional crafts for over 15 years. They pass on very practical knowledge and skills for working with children in nature, teach traditional crafts such as carving and equipment construction like kayak building, and how to build sustainable lifestyle - a rich life with simple means.

Elizabeth Henderson, UK
Elizabeth Henderson is an experienced teacher, practitioner, manager, lecturer, trainer, and author in the Early Years sector with more than 40 years of experience. Her current research is on sustainability and indigenous pathways. Elizabeth completed her doctorate in Early Childhood Education and Care using autoethnography as her chosen methodology. She then published the first book in the Early Years sector on autoethnography titled Autoethnography in Early Childhood and Care: Narrating the Heart of Practice. She has also published further work on sustainability, outdoor work with young children, and inclusion and diversity. Elizabeth is the founder of several innovative projects in Scotland which include: Nature Nurture a project for children under the age of three years from challenging backgrounds; and WIGLS a Community of Practice to help support practitioners working with Nature and the outdoor context in their Early Years settings. She also sowed the seeds that initiated the opening of the first Outdoor Nursery in her local authority, in Aberdeen. Through her work, Elizabeth has gained extensive experience of working with inclusion, diversity, equity, and the natural environment.

Nadja Hillgruber, (FH)
Dipl.-Ing. (FH), Feuervogel nature educator, board member of the Feuervogel co-operative, editorial director of the magazine Nature Flow - Naturally curious!, project manager of nature craft projects, co-initiator of the movement "Naturkinder weltweit Hand in Hand". The nature educator, who lives in Switzerland, accompanies the pupils of the Montessori school "Bildung mit Weitblick" on their forest day and is part of the nature educator team at the University of Education in the canton of Thurgau, which organises forest experience days for school classes under the motto "Experience and discover". In her projects, she emphasises the importance of allowing people to simply be in contact with nature. To discover, feel, experience and grow at their own pace. Trusting people to learn to assess for themselves what they are capable of. Everyone helps everyone. Since her childhood, Nadja has found that nature, with its changing seasons, has an untouchable magic that captures us and takes us on a wonderful journey, taking us back to our roots. 

Katia Hueso, ES
Katia Hueso-Kortekaas is MSc Biology graduated from Leiden University (The Netherlands) and holds a PhD in Society and Culture from the University of Barcelona. Since 1994 she works as a consultant on environmental and sustainable development topics in various countries in Europe, America and Africa and is an adjunct professor at ICAI / Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid and lecturer on nature education at various universities in Spain. She co-founded the first modern nature kindergarten in Spain, the “Saltamontes” Nature Play Group and soon after, the Inclusive Nature initiative, aimed at facilitating contact with nature for families with children with disabilities. She is ambassador of the “Children of nature worldwide hand in hand” movement, lecturer, trainer and author of several works on the subject, among which the books “We are nature”, "Playing outdoors" and “Educating in nature” published in Spanish.

Petra Jäger, DE
She is founder of the Waldkindergarten Flensburg (together with a friend Kerstin Jebsen)  and has been working there for 30 years. Waldkindergarten is a first publicly recognized forest kindergarten in Germany. She spent a lot of her childhood outdoors, where she gained a lot of security and knowledge for her future life. The Waldkindergarten remained with its roots. It feels meaningful and right to protect the right of the child to learn outdoors, because nature offers children enough learning opportunities and a lot of time for self-tuned comprehension and action. Less is often more here. Children encopass self-development in free play in nature and feel safe and secure thank to the rituals and daily routines in an always recurring safe framework.  

During 30 years at the Waldkindergarten Flensburg Petra completed additional training in systemic consulting. For many years has been advising Waldkindergarten in Germany and received the great gift of working in an advisory capacity, even beyond the national borders, and to support countries with the first foundation of forest kindergartens. Petra co-founded the organization “Tree Canopy" with an Italian colleague Lorenzo Filippi. Together with Lorenzo Filippi and Nadja Hillgruberalso offers a platform "Forest Kindergarten International Federation", where a lot of different information about nature education is collected and shared.

Darren Lewis, UK
Darren Lewis is UK Ambassador for Children in Nature Worldwide Hand in Hand International Nature Kindergarten Collaborative, a former schools adviser and current owner of Ignite Unlocking Potential. Is experienced in managing projects aimed at raising school achievement, improving the health & wellbeing of the pupils and increasing parental engagement. He is a passionate advocate for child centered learning in nature. In 2010 started Ignite Unlocking Potential and became the first Welsh practitioner to train in Skogsmulle (Swedish Pedagogy). In 2014 opened Wales first Nature Kindergarten and became Claire Wardens Training Consultant for Wales. In 2015 became a Director of the Forest School Association (National Governing Body). In 2019, became the UK Ambassador for the Hand in Hand conference.

David Sobel, US
David Sobel is a Professor Emeritus in the Education Department at Antioch University New England in Keene, NH.  He consults and speaks widely on child development, place-based education, and nature-based early childhood education.  He has authored ten books and more than 80 articles focused on children and nature for educators, parents, environmentalists and school administrators in the last 30 years.  His most recent books are “Wild Play: Parenting Adventures in the Great Outdoors” published by Green Writers Press, “The Sky Above and the Mud Below: Lessons from Nature Preschools and Forest Kindergarten” and “Best Bike Rides in New England”.

Greg Sommer, DE/US
Gregory Sommer grew up on the Pacific Northwest coast of Washington State. He became interested in exploring and hitchhiking and learned skills for life in the wilderness. As a young man, he spent a year in the New Jersey wilderness living in a cabin he built himself. He studied with Jon Young the art of mentoring and connecting with nature to deepen his understanding of nature and place. For 20 years he has worked with children and adults in various nature programs and peer mentoring. Currently living in Berlin, he is a guide at a forest nursery and free school. He imparts his knowledge of tracking and skills for life in the wilderness to adults in various courses. He is studying Gaelic by distance learning at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in Scotland.

Tereza Valkounová, CZ
Tereza studied biology. As part of her doctoral studies in Primary Education, she got an internship in Germany, where she broadened her horizons with the concept of sustainable development, in practical terms, with forest nurseries. She co-founded the Association of Forest Kindergartens (ALMS) and has been leading it ever since. Since September 2021, she has been working as an educator at the kindergarten. She is mainly engaged in advocacy activities, lecturing on selected topics (beneficial risk, children's resilience, nature pedagogy, education for sustainable development) and represents ALMŠ externally.

Bc. Olga Závadová, CZ
Olga had the opportunity to make music with a famous music pedagogue Mr. Jurkovič in her childhood, playing flutes and singing from morning till evening. She has been working in the Waldorf Kindergarten environment since high school. She plays pentatonic flutes with preschoolers, where she leads the FuFu Band children's orchestra and works with children in the small kindergarten. She plays and sings pentatonic and folk songs with the children, combines playing the flutes with various Orff instruments, and makes various instruments with the children. She accompanies traditional festivities during the year with music, and enjoys them with children and their parents.