EEPSA is a volunteer organization.
Executive meetings are held approximately once every two months. EEPSA members and the general public are welcome to attend executive meetings to make presentations and to contribute to the proceedings. Please contact our President, Nick Townley, if you would like information or to discuss opportunities to participate.
Current Executive & Advisory Roles
President
Nick Townley
Nick lives, works, and adventures on the shores of the Salish Sea. He teaches with the Vancouver School Board’s TREK Outdoor Education Program. He is a director of Classrooms to Communities, Take Me Outside, and a past BC Director of the Outdoor Council of Canada. He has a Master of Arts in Environmental Education and Communication, from Royal Roads University.
For seven summers, Nick worked on the coordinator team with the Pearson Seminar on Youth Leadership. For thirteen spring and fall seasons, he taught in the outdoor classroom of Átl’ka7tsem (Howe Sound) with Sea to Sky Outdoor School, where he was a Program Director and well known for his bioregional comedy routines. He has spent a total of nine months as the Ecoguardian on Race Rocks Ecological Reserve.
email: [email protected]
Vice President
and Local Chapter Coordinator
Laura Jackman
Laura was born and raised in the Kootenays and currently lives in Rossland BC. She is the Outdoor Classroom teacher at Rossland Summit School. Laura has been working to transform a small restored wetland and community garden space into an outdoor classroom and since 2020, has been providing the prep relief for her school in this magical space. She is the membership chair of EEPSA and has recently begun instructing for the West Kootenay Teacher Education Program.
Laura is passionate about ecological and social justice education. She believes that teaching outdoors breaks down barriers and naturally allows for a more holistic pedagogy to emerge. Her practice centers the Land as the best teacher and the concept that we need to foster relationships with the more-than-human throughout a child’s developmental journey so that we can ensure they stay accountable to those relationships.
email: [email protected]
Secretary
Donna Boucher
Donna‘s connection to the environment started as a child growing up on her family’s farm in southwestern Ontario. Her outdoor interests guided her to a BSc degree in Biology and Anthropology at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. Donna’s early career work in wildlife biology involved diverse experiences including relocating bears, wetland inventories, deer check stations, and studying moose in Algonquin Park. She also worked as a news and nature photographer completing courses at Sheridan College of Applied Arts and Technology.
After moving to BC, she continued her education at SFU and completed her B. Ed with an Environmental minor. She joined EEPSA at that time and has continued to be actively involved in teacher engagement /pro-d activities, as well as serving as EEPSA secretary for the past 11 years. Donna has been a teacher for over 19 years, encouraging her students to connect with their environment through place-based learning experiences. She has initiated various “green” related projects with her students and recently completed her Graduate Diploma in Nature and Place-based Learning through SFU. She is currently teaching for the Chilliwack School District. In her spare time, she enjoys paddling, photography, hiking, gardening and spending time with her daughters.
email: [email protected]
Treasurer
Francis McCoubrey
Frances is a Grade 7 teacher in Williams Lake. She has worked in outdoor education for the past 24 years with various agencies and enjoys being outside as much as possible. She has been an EEPSA member for the past 6 years.
email: [email protected]
Membership
Chloe Faught
Chloe is a 5th generation settler on Lekwungen, W̱SÁNEĆ and Halq’emeylem lands who has a deep love for this place and is grateful every day for being able to live on these lands and learn. She has a passion for being wild; whether it is by foot, by bike or by canoe and finds the more she gets out there, the more she loves the wild west coast. She is a secondary science and social studies teacher in the Saanich School District and the current president of the Salish Sea Environmental Educators Provincial Specialist Association (SSEEPSA). She is passionate about moving forward the agenda on climate action in our districts and supporting the work of indigenous educators in land-based learning.
email: [email protected]
Communications Chair/ Web Manager
Megan Zeni
Megan is a mom, teacher, master gardener, and nature play enthusiast. She is a K-7 educator with over 25 years of classroom experience who re-imagined the prep role at her public school and turned it into her dream job of teaching all day in an outdoor and garden classroom for ten years! Megan is currently the Early Learning and Curriculum Implementation teacher consultant in SD38.
Megan is concurrently completing her PhD at UBC in curriculum & pedagogy. Her research interests include developing professional learning communities with in-service teachers to bridge emerging theories with teaching practices that include unstructured and risky outdoor play as a pedagogical approach.
Megan is a frequent speaker and workshop facilitator on all things K-7 outdoors. She shares out her learning on Instagram and Twitter at @roomtoplay and on her blog at meganzeni.com
email: [email protected]
Communications
Heidi Lessman
Heidi Lessman is an Outdoor Place-based Learning Teacher and Teacher Mentor in the North Vancouver School District as well as an Educational Consultant. She has been a teacher for over 20 years, working with a variety of outdoor, environmental and experiential education programs. Heidi enjoys getting outdoors with her students. She sees students connect to the environment in a healthy and meaningful way when participating in outdoor place-based learning. Many students comment on how happy and calm they feel while learning outside. They love sitting on a sit pad in the forest to do a sit spot, especially when they are dressed for the weather. So much of the curriculum can be taught outside; it is helpful to use outdoor learning routines and provide students with opportunities to practice.
email: [email protected]
Professional Development
Bridget McClarty
Bridget was born and raised in northern BC, on the traditional territories of the Haisla Nation. Before becoming a teacher, she worked as a wildlife biologist studying more-than-human beings in many parts of the world. She taught senior biology and junior high science for several years in Alberta and the Yukon before migrating to her other passion: experiential outdoor education. For 16 years, Bridget taught integrated semester programs for secondary students in the Yukon and B.C., with trips including: canoeing Yukon rivers, bird banding, quinzee (snow cave) camping, backpacking, cycle touring, sea kayaking (in Alaska and BC), avalanche awareness/tenting in snow, and extreme snow angel-ing. She is passionate about exploring and appreciating wild places, and lives to share her enthusiasm with her students.
Bridget’s previous research examined meaningful and spiritual connections to nature and the role of awe in such connections. Currently, she teaches as a TTOC in Sea to Sky School District, is an instructor for BCIT’s Fish, Wildlife, and Recreation program, and is a PhD student at Simon Fraser University, researching experiential place-based education through the lens of eco-phenomenology.
Bridget loves backcountry skiing, packrafting, sea kayaking, mountain biking, backpacking, SCUBA diving, and dog walking.
email: [email protected]
Members at Large
Emma Bransfield
Emma grew up and built a deep love of nature on the lands of the Stoney-Nakoda & Tsuut’ina people (Treaty 7 land, Bragg Creek, AB) frolicking in the forests, building ant homes, climbing trees, and collecting tadpoles. After graduating from UVic with a BEd, she began her career in Calgary as a Forest School and Nature Kindergarten educator for Common Digs where she quickly found her niche in a place-responsive, inquiry-based, emergent outdoor classroom.
Now, she finds her home and workplace in Qukin ʔamakʔis (Raven’s Land) on the ancestral lands of the Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi ‘it (Fernie, BC). She loves to hike, bike, camp, and garden with her family. As an SD5 teacher and a certified Forest School practitioner, she is a strong believer that the best learning happens outside in all-weather through deep imaginative and risky play, creative storytelling, and place-bonding practices. Emma has led various professional development workshops on topics related to Forest School philosophy and practice.
Emma is completing her MA in Environmental Education & Communication and her research explores how nature-immersive, arts-informed practice can develop a deeper sense of self, enhanced pedagogy, and ecological identity. Emma’s studies demonstrate how decentering herself as a teacher outside can contribute to the decolonization of education.
email: [email protected]
Karen Andrews
Karen has been teaching for 25 years in the Coast Mountains School District where she loves to explore the mountains and ocean. She’s a member of Terrace Search and Rescue, specializing in swiftwater and avalanche response. Karen has a post-degree diploma in Adventure Education and is a certified Outdoor Council of Canada field leader in hiking. Karen has a Bachelor of Education (French) from the University of Calgary and a Master’s Degree in Leadership from UNBC. She’s passionate about teaching in the outdoors and supporting teacher mentorship and collaboration. Karen facilitates teacher workshops on a variety of topics and is excited to be a part of EEPSA.
email:[email protected]
Past President
Jonathan Dyck
After living and teaching in Surrey and Langley for 15 years, Jonathan and his family decided to move to Powell River on the Sunshine Coast. He is currently teaching French Immersion and ELL at the local secondary school, and enjoys hiking and paddling and spending time by the ocean.
He holds undergraduate degrees in English literature and education, and a Master’s degree in curriculum and instruction, with a focus on ecological education. He endeavours to teach English and other subjects from a place-based approach, and loves what happens when he takes his students outside!
Jonathan has facilitated many workshops for EEPSA and the BCTF, on topics such as language arts education, Aboriginal education, place-based learning, social media, anti-racism, and the new curriculum. He appreciates the many layers and facets of the BCTF, and is known to get excited about politics. 🙂
email: [email protected]
Advisory Committee Liaison Positions
Duncan Whittick, CBEEN
Selina Metcalfe, KBEE
Patrick Robertson, Classrooms to Communities (C2C) Education Network and UBC Teacher Education
David Zandvliet, SFU Teacher Education
