Judy Braus has been actively involved in national and international environmental education efforts for almost three decades. She is currently the Executive Director of the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE), a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing environmental literacy and civic engagement to create a more equitable and sustainable future for all. Prior to NAAEE, she successfully managed the education and outreach departments at three national and international conservation organizations: the National Audubon Society, World Wildlife Fund, and the National Wildlife Federation. She was also the manager of environmental education programming at the US Peace Corps. She has led many international environmental education projects, facilitated leadership workshops and conferences in dozens of countries, been the chief editor of several successful national publishing efforts focused on environmental education, and published in numerous nationally recognized periodicals and books.
Judy’s areas of expertise include environmental education, project management and strategic planning, leadership training and facilitation, conservation planning, writing and publishing, diversity and inclusion, curriculum and web development, and fundraising. Throughout her career, has Judy focused on using the power of education to help communities restore and protect the environment. She is passionate about creating a more equitable and inclusive environmental movement and strengthening NAAEE (and NAEE) so that they can help empower individuals and organizations to work together to increase their collective impact and create societal change.
Margaret Fleming leads MF Associates, a small educational consultancy with a focus on Sustainability and Science Education. She is active in a number of international initiatives and is currently working on the EU project Urban Science, which is delivering a means to teach pupils how science can develop solutions for sustainable cities, motivating them to view the positive benefits of science to the urban environment. Previously she was a partner in the EU project CoDeS (School and Community Collaboration for Sustainable Development) leading on teacher education initiatives. CoDeS aimed to provide a fresh perspective for inquiry based science learning and improve students’ motivation, deepen knowledge in science and develop civic competencies. She worked with the ENSI network, and with many of the official environmental education contacts for most EU countries, and is collaborating with other European experts from Austria, Cyprus and Hungary to keep the network alive. International activity has also included membership of the United Nations RCE-EM (Regional Centre for Expertise for ESD (East Midlands).
Margaret is a trustee of SEEd and the ASE, developed the ASE’s environmental education best practice guide, and edited the special Sustainable School edition of Education in Science. Margaret delivers and writes CPD for both primary and secondary science teachers with clients include STEM learning and other major science education groups. She is a Polar Explorer Ambassador. Her range of research activity and long term learning on topics related to science and environmental education recently led to the award of Csciteach.
Graham Frost has been headteacher of the Robert Fergusson Primary School in Carlisle for 16 years. Graham has been a trustee of NAEE and contributes to our writing and other output. He blogs at: cumbriahead.wordpress.com and you can follow him @GrahamFrost . He is a member of the national executive of the NAHT and champions environmental and climate education within that organisation.
In a motion proposing that NAHT should support climate education, he said:
“School leaders cannot ignore the growing pupil voice on climate change, and children cannot articulately challenge the powers-that-be without being educated. Equipped with scientific knowledge, our pupils can see that system-wide technological, political, sociological and economic changes at a local and global level are urgently and desperately needed.”
Henry Greenwood is founder and managing director of Green Schools Project, a social enterprise he set up in 2015. He is also a Maths teacher who, while teaching at Kingsmead School in Enfield, developed the role of Sustainability Coordinator, assembling a group of students who embarked on an energy saving campaign that saved the school more than £35,000 over 3 years, installed solar panels, created a vegetable garden, and carried out various other projects.
He used this experience to set up Green Schools Project, an organisation which aims to change the way schools respond to the climate and nature crisis. The organisation supports pupils to learn more about climate change and run projects to address it and delivers teacher training on climate education. He now oversees the Zero Carbon Schools programme, for which he won the London Schools Changemaker of the Year award in 2022, and runs in over 80 schools around the country.
Dr Ian Humphreys joined Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful as Chief Executive in 2008 following 13 years at The Conservation Volunteers. Prior to this Ian was a Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast working in agricultural zoology and forestry. In his current role, Ian’s desire to progress environmental education and youth leadership has ensured every school in Northern Ireland is registered with the international Eco-Schools programme. Supported by diverse delivery partners, this reflects Ian’s belief that it is only by working together that real change will be achieved. Whilst much of Ian’s work has focused on youth and community engagement, he is also a keen advocate of systemic change. Working with Northern Ireland’s Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, he has initiated climate education training for teachers, students, civil servants and others, and is working with the Department for Education and the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment to strengthen urgently needed climate education across the curriculum. More recently, Ian established 30 Under 30 Climate Change Makers, a country-based version of NAAEE’s EE 30 Under 30 leadership development programme.
As a Board member for the Foundation for Environmental Education Ian has responsibility for the Education programmes, including Eco-Schools and supporting delivery of the UN’s Greening Education Partnership targets. He also sits on the Advisory Group for the Global Environmental Education Partnership, the Board of Northern Ireland Environment Link and the Leadership Council of the All-Island Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Ireland. He was awarded the British Empire Medal in 2022 for services to the environment and recognized in the 2023 Ends Report Power List as one of the 100 most influential environmental professionals. Ian is a keen ornithologist, licensed ringer/bander and volunteer at Copeland Bird Observatory.
Dr Jessica Tipton joined the Natural History Museum in May 2023 as Head of the National Education Nature Park, a Department for Education-funded project led by the Museum in partnership with the Royal Horticultural Society, Royal Society and others that is a key element of the DfE’s Sustainability Strategy. After studying Russian and clarinet, Jess worked at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs for ten years across various policy areas including the Marine Act, sustainable farming and the 25-year Environment Plan. She then became a secondary school modern languages teacher while completing a doctorate on Russian multilingualism and was inspired to return to sustainability by all the young people concerned about the climate and nature crises. While still teaching, Jess set up the London Schools Eco Network to bring together school pupils and staff, which soon formed a model for other regional networks and earned her London’s Sustainable Changemaker of the Year Award.
After working as Director of Advocacy at the charity Students Organising for Sustainability on the student-led Teach the Future campaign and instigating the first online Youth Climate Summit in 2020, she joined Global Action Plan in 2021 as Head of Youth Networks where she established the UK Schools Sustainability Network (People’s Choice Net Zero 50 List winner) and took a large delegation of teenagers to the global climate summit COP26 in Glasgow. Jess sits on the Department for Education Sustainability & Climate Strategy User Group, the WWF Sustainable Futures Advisory Group, and UCL’s Institute of Education Climate & Sustainability Advisory Board. Her research interests include the history of Russia’s relations with global climate negotiations and eighteenth-century Russian views on English landscape gardening. You can find Jess on LinkedIn (DrJessicaTipton) and Twitter (@DrJessT_eco).
Suzanne Welch is the National Education & Families Manager for the RSPB. She has spent most of her working life, facilitating personal and social development and learning with Children and Young People in a variety of situations – Local Authority Social Care, residential and day environmental education provision, formal education, in corporate organisations as well as NGO’s throughout England, Wales and internationally, championing connection to nature through experiential learning as a key opportunity to support young people’s development and growth as responsible citizens as well as successful learners. She is passionate about providing opportunities for young people to experience and learn about and within the natural environment, believing that these opportunities can strongly influence a young person’s connection to nature and in turn influencing their desire to take action for it too.
With over 25 years experience of project and delivery management in the natural environment sector, including past leadership of NASA’s Global education project in the UK, Suzanne currently leads a national team that delivers RSPB‘s targets for work with and for children and young people, developing strategy and assessing impact for its work with the formal education sector across the UK and internationally (supporting BirdLife partners).
Believing in the power of consortium working, Suzanne was previous co-chair of the Our Shared World (OSW) consortium ESD working group, now an active member of OSW and current Chair of the Natural Environment Sector Partnership (NESP). Previously a Quality Badge Assessor for the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom Suzanne is currently a member of the Quality Badge Committee, working to assure quality standards of teaching, learning and safety through assessment and verification of organisations providing learning outside the classroom across all sectors.
