Earth Keepers Camps
Cultivating meaningful relationships between children and nature.
Collaborative explorations of connecting children and permaculture.
More than just gardening, permaculture offers us a way to see the world through the curious eyes of a child - full of wonder and wide with possibility.
Our Vision
Embracing Eco-Literacy As A Critical Skill
Earth Keepers is rooted in a deep desire to restore and cultivate a meaningful relationship between children and the natural world.
Through child-led and child-centric activities, we guide children through the principles and practices of permaculture and the essential understanding that nature sustains all life. We are dedicated to offering learning experiences of collaboration, community and responsibility, in tender consideration for the generations to come.
We create and facilitate day, weekend and week long camps, intended for school children and home-schoolers during summer vacations, or when requested, during the school year. We currently run camps in Austria, Hungary and Germany.
Our Program
Creating A New Kind Of Learning Field
We believe that the best education is a holistic one. One where many different pedagogies, practices and possibilities are offered to the child. One where the children themselves are part of creating their own learning, ignited by their curiosity and imagination. One where learning and having fun aren't mutually exclusive and acting in accordance with nature becomes just that: second nature.
We are all aware of how much more potential and possibility a child's education can hold - we create day, weekend and week-long camps as a supplement to regular schooling. We aren't tied to academic reports, exams or protocols: our intention is to engage children in permaculture practices and principles and we do so through inspiring forest education games, Montessori methods, storytelling, music and practical garden work. We ensure our camps are interactive, rich in diversity and discovery and always regard nature as our greatest teacher. She challenges us and nurtures us, embraces us and gives us space; reminds us to just be, and delights us every time. We're all about these moments; the very experience itself.
(Scroll through the slideshow below to read more about the elements of our program)
Permaculture
Permaculture is an ethical-based design science that mimics patterns in nature to create reciprocal and regenerative relationships between humans and their surroundings.
By having permaculture as one of the central pillars of our program, we offer children a closer look at why things work they way they do, and that things work better when they work together. We want children to understand that nothing in nature is ever isolated, instead; we support them in seeing everything as an integrative part of a whole system that is deeply connected. We hope this awareness leads to a sense of resilience within them, which is much-needed at this time.
Study Nature, Understand Nature, Copy Nature
The Facilitator
Guiding Curiosity, Cultivating Awareness
Ange
Ange feels much gratitude that, as an educator, her classroom is outdoors and in nature. She believes it's the absolute best place to work and the place where children truly thrive. Ange loves the mindset, joys and challenges that come with being an educator and is always seeking out ways to diversify what she teaches.
Ange has taken four extensive permaculture design courses and is a certified permaculture teacher. She worked as the School Garden Coordinator at a Montessori school in Portland, Oregon, where she created four educational gardens. This included a 150m2 edible permaculture garden, for which she wrote an accompanying curriculum. Ange taught children aged 3 to 12 the importance of knowing where your food comes from and connected them to the wonders of the natural world.
Wanting to move away from the bureaucracy of the school system and following an immersive forest education training, Ange created the concept of these permaculture and nature-immersion camps. She is currently completing her Montessori teacher training as she sees many parallels between the Montessori pedagogy and Permaculture. She is in the midst of creating a curriculum that combines both and brings children into a collaborative learning experience.
Earth Keepers Camps started in 2022 while Ange was living in southern Portugal and completing a year long permaculture teacher training. She now lives in Austria (returning to the place where her parents live) and is deeply interested in learning and exploring more about self-autonomy and community resilience.
Current Camp Offerings
sábado, 12/03Pachawa Retreat Center
How Our Camps Work
We are currently run day and week long camps at Sonnenblumenhof in Niederösterreich in the months of May - September 2023. If you are a parent, please get in touch via email to sign up.
If you are a school and wish to bring Earth Keepers Camps to your campus, please get in touch and we will create a customised camp with you.
Keepers of The Earth
Our name is inspired by the beautiful book Keepers of the Earth by Joseph Bruchac and Michael J. Caduto. We have received many inspiring and moving teachings from this book - both in activity and story form- and we feel blessed to pass these on to the children in our camps.
Nature give us energy, inspiration and vast possibilities; we must keep the force of this energy around us; keep the song of inspiration alive and keep the possibilities available to all. Let us keep what we cherish close.
An appreciate and admiration for nature is what will ensure it's well-being and longevity. We must keep it alive, for it keeps us alive.
We are Earth stewards, Earth lovers, Earth advocates and Earth carers.
We are Earth Keepers.
"The Earth is home for all of its creatures. It is our habitat, the place where people, plants and animals live and meet our survival needs. As stewards of the Earth, people have the responsibility to care for the well-being of the living and non-living things found here.
Every action we take affects our habitat and those with whom we share it. This is the basis of ecology, the study of the interactions between living things and their environments. In the past we have sometimes succeeded, and sometimes failed, to be good stewards. Giving thanks and taking care of the Earth are two ways we can help to sustain life - to keep the Earth well for the children to come."
-Keepers of the Earth: Native American Stories and Environmental Activities for Children
by Joseph Bruchac and Michael J. Caduto
Register Here!
We are so looking forward to you joining us on this journey! Any questions prior to registering, feel free to email us:
*Filling out this form does not bind you to the course - but neither does it secure your spot! Please follow the instructions in the email we send you.*
