Training For Educators
Recharge your Curriculum and Yourself
Recharge Your Teaching Skills With a Fresh Perspective on
Story, Meaning, and Place
Teaching is both intellectual and deeply human work. Many educators are seeking ways to design learning experiences that feel meaningful, relevant, and alive—while still meeting curriculum goals, professional standards, and classroom realities.
In this training, you’ll learn to use place as a source of story, meaning, and connection. You will experience opportunities to refresh your teaching practice and reconnect with your own purpose, creativity, and place connections, so the work you care deeply about can translate into stronger learning experiences for students.
Suitable for educators across subjects, grade levels, and locations, including:
K-12 Teachers
Graduate Students in Education Programs
Environmental, Literature, and History Educators
Museum and Park Educators
Independent and Informal Educators
Bring Your Curriculum to Life Applying:
✔︎ Storytelling & Narrative-Based Teaching:
Learn how to weave personal, historical, and community stories into your lesson plans, making learning more relatable and memorable.
✔︎ Creative Expression as a Learning Tool
:
Discover how to use place-based story, music, art, and creative writing to deepen understanding and connection.
✔︎ 21st-Century Skills Through Sense of Place Learning:
Help students think critically, collaborate meaningfully, and engage creatively with history, culture, and nature.
✔︎ Inquiry-Based Learning Strategies:
Encourage students to ask questions, investigate, and form their own conclusions through active, meaningful exploration.
✔︎ Building Confidence, Belonging, and Well-Being:
Support students in finding their voice, exploring personal connections to place and history, and cultivating a sense of belonging in the classroom and beyond.
“Place-based educator and author David Orr often writes that the ecological crisis is not a technical crisis, but a spiritual crisis. Erica helps bridge the space between head and heart—encouraging learners to reconnect with place not just as a resource, but as a pathway for understanding life and meaning.”
— Torrey McMillan, Center for Sustainability, Hathaway Brown School, Shaker Heights, OH
Training Example: Approaching Walden
Since 2006, Erica has led a core teaching segment of Approaching Walden, a professional development program for educators at Walden Pond.
She invites participants to experience Thoreau not as a distant literary figure, but as an entry point into personal connection, reflection, and meaning. Rather than beginning with analysis for curriculum design, the training begins where meaningful learning often starts: with lived experience and personal connection to place.
1. Beginning with Personal Connection : The session opens with guided reflective writing, inviting educators to reconnect with their own place experiences.
2. Experiencing Walden Today : Participants then engage with Walden Pond through both sensory experience and story, modeling how place itself becomes a teacher.
3. Translating Experience into Teaching Practice
: Educators
explore a sequence of reflective activities they can bring to the classroom, including Finding the Thoreau in You—Erica’s popular worksheet to explore personal place connections through Thoreau’s themes.
4. Sharing Ideas and Program Design: Educators consider how similar approaches can inform their own curriculum design and classroom practice and craft a meaningful lesson unit based on ideas sparked by the training.
“Extremely relevant, easily adaptable, and usable.”
— Participant, Approaching Walden, MA
Interested in Recharging Your Teaching?
For nearly two decades, Erica has offered seminars, workshops, and professional learning experiences for educators working in schools, parks, museums, and community settings.
She offers short seminars and conference sessions to half-day and full-day professional development experiences, depending on context and goals.
Whether you're looking for a creative boost or wanting to weave place-based stories into your lessons, this training will give you the tools you need to make learning more meaningful and lasting.
Prior Training and Conferences
Approaching Walden, Walden Woods Project
Antioch Graduate School
Georgia Environmental Educators Conference
Massachusetts Environmental Education Society
New England Environmental Education Alliance
Teacher-Ranger-Teacher (National Park Service)
Teton Science School and Journeys School