Educator Spotlight: Celesta, B&B Program Director

I love this quote from the founder of Mother Natured, Penny Whitehouse:
“They’re not just playing in nature, they are learning, creating, sensing, believing, relaxing, exploring, observing, wondering, connecting, discovering, appreciating, understanding, experimenting…”   Every person needs time in nature to do all these things, especially our children.  I am honored to have been selected as the new Executive Director and to be a part of the beautiful community of Barnacles & Bees.  It is an enormous privilege to get to work with such passionate and dedicated nature educators/guides.  I look forward to getting to know you and your children over the coming months.  With the summer break upon us, I wanted to share a little about myself and my family.
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Having grown up on the Oregon coast I enjoyed exploring the beach and the mountains.  When I had children, it was not only a necessity but a way of life to be outside in nature as much as possible.  As the mother of two boys (15 and 13) living in the beautiful PNW nature has been at the heart of our life as a family. Boys have lots of energy and nature was and is the best place for that energy: beach walks, swimming, bike riding, hiking, scuba diving, and nature exploration in general.  As my boys grew, I was fortunate to learn about the connection between nature and education through parent/child classes and then preschool at the Tacoma Waldorf School.  We were blessed to be a part of such a holistic nature-based community.  We formed very dear friendships and nature habits during these foundational years of growth for my boys.  We then joined a Montessori preschool community and again enjoyed the Montessori approach to nature learning.  These foundational experiences helped guide our school choices moving forward.  My boys then moved into a Tacoma School District elementary school that was STEAM focused and adopted a very hands-on, real-world learning approach utilizing Project Based Learning.  The school eventually added an Outdoor Learning component to further enrich the student's hands-on learning.  As a parent volunteer and then staff member, I worked closely with the teachers to lead and support outdoor learning excursions across all grade levels.  Also, during this time, I was inspired to bring mindfulness to the classroom and became a certified K-12 Educator.  I have spent the past seven years supporting and teaching elementary students and teachers in various capacities at multiple public schools.  Working with students and supporting outdoor education through a lens of mindfulness has become my personal passion.  

I consider this position a gift to be doing such meaningful work with Barnacles & Bees!  Thank you and I look forward to seeing you all soon.