Who do we mean by ‘educator’?

We strive to keep that term as broad as possible, meaning ‘adult who care about education’. These are people who are currently or considering getting more involved in educating their home communities about climate change through indigenous, local, cultural, gastronomy, outdoor skills, environmental and language perspectives. This includes certified or student teachers, early childhood educators, outdoor experiential educators, home-learning parents,  community change-makers, wilderness guides, eco-tourism and sustainable travel specialists, and anyone else who feels they fit in here.  

World Bound Educators: A unique professional development adventure

For nearly 20 years, Fireside’s educators have been empowering young people to paddle oceans, climb mountains, and build profound relationships between humans and nature. During these years, we have witnessed the transformational gifts of nature and community, but also the ever-worsening toll of climate change on our ecosystems, communities, and individual well-being. As the years passed, it became clear that we could do more, that we needed to do more. Our kids were crying out for it.

So, we listened, and World Bound was born. World Bound began as an inquiry-based, experiential, outdoor education adventure, bringing youths face-to-face with the effects of climate change in the Amazon, the Alps, and the Yukon, whilst gaining the skill and knowledge to become climate leaders. The kids loved it, but one thing we kept hearing was, “Our teachers need this too.” So, once again, we listened. 

This year we are piloting World Bound Educator Courses to offer a pioneering professional development adventure created for educators who want something relevant, refreshing, experiential, and inspiring to hone their skills as classroom climate leaders. In Summer 2024, we’re bringing educators together from around the globe to participate in our 10-day professional development adventures in British Columbia, the Yukon, Italy, and Ecuador. Each of our four courses are focused on actionable climate change education and leadership skills that will benefit your communities, students, and teaching craft come September.

Funding Support for Educators

Fireside Adventures views this experience as essential professional development for empowering educators in their role as conscientious climate leaders.  As such, we are committed to assisting educators with whatever they need to access available professional development funding to offset the cost. Visit our Grant and Funding Support page for ideas about how to offset the cost of this course, or contact us with any questions or support needs.

The World Bound Guarantee

Our mission is to transform the traditional educator’s summer vacation into an opportunity for professional development training, networking with educators from around the world, and personal adventure to be able to take collective action. This is an opportunity to experience, participate in, and (re)learn climate change education so that you can return home ready to empower the future generation of climate leaders.

As educators ourselves, we understand that climate change education is about more than words. It’s about mastering a diverse skill set that is actionable enough to create change and eventually improving sustainability initiatives. Even though we’re trying something different, we want to be clear about the education-relevant skills and experience you’ll gain from this professional development adventure.

Course Deliverables

• Participate in climate education workshops
  In our experience, learning about the natural world means getting your hands dirty. This experience includes workshops on how to integrate land-based, experiential climate change education with your own classroom’s subjects, learning levels (K-12), and curriculum requirements.

• Collaborate on the World Bound Workbook
  All participants will be given our World Bound Curriculum Workbook containing learning resources, worksheets, and activities which can be transformed into a classroom workbook for your students. Participants will also have the opportunity to collaborate and share their ideas and insights as we move toward collaborative co-creation. We will also be working towards a World Bound App that educators can use to keep inspiring one another.

• Connect with diverse educational lenses
  The landscape of education is moving beyond the Westernized, paternalistic, brick-and-mortar environment. To reflect this, we connect participants with Indigenous knowledge-keepers, outdoor educators and guides, and/or local climate experts to support you in developing a holistic, cutting-edge practice for climate change education.

• Become a Duke of Edinburgh Assessor
  Fireside is proud to be a trained activity provider for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. For educators who want to go above and beyond, we are happy to provide support in becoming a DofE Assessor to help set their students up for career and educational success. Participants will also have an opportunity to work with us to plan field trips or extra-curricular adventures for their students.

• Take action
  Taking action on climate change is daunting, but it’s also essential; the best theories and intentions need to be paired with practice. We don’t believe in green-washing and sugar-coating, or utilizing alarmist and doom-or-gloom positioning. Instead, we focus on building sustainable and pragmatic yet hopeful platforms that are informative, interesting, and educational and promote action for aspiring climate leaders.

Encounter a world worth protecting
One thing is obvious: reconnecting with nature reconnects us with the emotional core of the fight against climate change. We need to see nature’s beauty, and the destruction we’re visiting upon it, to identify that fire in our hearts. Whether it’s canoeing the mighty Yukon River or crossing glaciers in the Dolomites; all our courses focus on helping educators build a more intimate relationship with the world they’re helping to protect and hopefully spur them into passing it on.

Collaborate with our World Bound Youths
When we say we’re all in this together, we mean it. One thing we learned from our World Bound youths is that they didn’t just want educators to experience what they’d experienced, they wanted everyone to experience it together. All our courses will overlap with our World Bound Youth expeditions to foster collaboration and connection between educators and youth on the problem of climate change. In the intent to share innovative ideas on how to tackle sustainable climate change.

Learn from local and Indigenous perspectives
If we’re going to slow the progress of climate change, we need to start listening to the people whose knowledge systems and histories are dedicated to living in harmony with nature. Whether it's the Amazonian Quechua or the traditional dairy farmers of the Alps, we’ll be engaging with local, traditional lenses on how to live lighter on the land. In fostering such connections, we hope to create more adaptive strategies in facing this together as a community. 

Practice sustainable travel skills
All participants will be mapping out their carbon footprint prior, during, and post-trip to see if their calculations were correct or not. Our goal is to utilize public transportation and self-propelled travel as much as possible to mitigate the unavoidable carbon cost of the experience. In doing so we hope to raise awareness of the environmental impact that both personal and collective carbon footprints can lead to informed decisions by adopting a more sustainable practice moving forward.