Our Team

We are a worker-owned cooperative, and are collaboratively building the Nature School Cooperative

Founding Teacher Owner

Ryan Pleune

*CO Dept Early Childhood - Director and Coach Certified 2022

*Early Childhood Health Outdoors (ECHO) Coach Certified 2022

*MS Ecological Teaching and Learning - Lesley University 2011

*BA Biology (Focus on Field Ecology) Colorado College 2000

*CO Teaching License Science 7-12 w/ ELL Designation

*Wilderness First Responder 2021

Ryan is a web weaver and a bringer of people and ideas. He has taught and facilitated ecological literacy for over 22 years both inside and outside the formal classroom with ages 3 through 18.

Ryan is a "re-wilding" practitioner and has been since age 3. He honors the natural and inherent beauty of human migration while still being accountable to repair settler colonial oppression and border imperialism. He resides on stolen native land, Tsêhéstáno (Cheyenne) and Hinono'eino (Arapaho) unceded territory and works towards reconciliation through Land Back initiatives. His heart and soul are rooted in the intermountain west bio-region but like all White Americans his relatives are immigrants. Born and raised in Denver, attending integrated DPS schools (Park Hill Elementary 1989; Smiley Middle 1992; Manual High School 1996).

He reveres the interweaving of life and organizes for climate justice transitions addressing the human induced Sixth Mass Extinction. He aims to help students and society participate in the global movement to protect life on Earth, sometimes listening to “youth wisdom” before listening to “adults”. For the last several years, while working as an Ecological Literacy Specialist in Denver Public Schools and in Salt Lake City Public Schools, he has been a researcher and practitioner of Land Based and Nature Based Pedagogy and/or Forest Schools and also creating modified Forest School programming for public schools.

Founding Teacher Owner

Kat Owens They/She

*CO Dept Early Childhood - Director and Coach Certified 2022

*Early Childhood Health Outdoors (ECHO) Coach Certified 2022

*MA Early Childhood Education, ASU 2017
*Teaching License, CO Birth - Eight 2017-23

*BFA Fine Arts, SVA NYC, NY 2010
*BEES Educator, CU Denver 2019

*CPR & Wilderness First Aid 2024

Kat is a synthesizer, who values understanding how things work. She has taught and facilitated early childhood environments both inside and outside the classroom for 10+ years. They are a white, queer, non-binary, chronically-ill, radical thinker.

Kat grew up on the salty coast of New England, on the land of the Wabanaki, Pennacook, Pawtucket, & Abenaki people.

After spending a decade in New York City, she moved out west. Landing in Denver in 2017, Kat has worked in a variety of preschool settings to hone her skills in nature-based, child-led learning. From Colorado Kids Academy, Head Start programs in Clayton Early Learning, and Denver Public Schools - she has been developing relationships with several local communities, incredible families & wildly talented colleagues.

Her passion lives in cultivating perceptual reciprocity through meaningful relationships with the human and non-human world. She is an expert guide in playing with and around wild nature-scapes. A careful observer of all beings, she finds out what makes people light up, especially through bird language and embodied water knowledge like the Selkie. Her apprenticeship was served with the Black Capped Chickadee. and salt water currents on the East and West Coasts of Turtle Island.

Founding Teacher Owner

Stephen “Boukman” Byrd

*Certified Life Coach 2022
*Certified Neuro-linguistic programming Coach 2023
*Basic Life Support certified 2023
*CPR & Wilderness First Aid 2024

Byrd is a galvanizer of diverse perspectives. He is an avid outdoorsman who has been introducing children of all ages to nature since 1996.

He has worked with youth in CO in several arenas; from the Colorado Division of Wildlife to the Salvation Army, to youth league coaching, grassroots youth outreach efforts, serving as the Chief Mentor of his own mentoring program that partnered with the YMCA for after-school enrichment programs, and as a senior student of the Tumfo Tu martial arts discipline. He has 26 years of experience diligently working to educate, protect, empower, and connect the youth to the outdoors.

Byrd is an autodidact, revolutionary educator, and knowledgeable outdoor survivalist. He has homeschooled his 6 and 9-year-old sons since they were both of pre-k age. His love and respect for nature is the reason he has accompanied hundreds of children on exploratory hikes through the Rocky Mountains.

Byrd's desire to preserve nature and create harmonious and regenerative educational and economic systems resulted in him beginning his journey as an advocate for fundamental changes with the Zeitgeist movement in 2009. The Zeitgeist movement was established to fundamentally shift away from market capitalism, which they described as structurally corrupt, wasteful of resources, and destructive to the planet.

Byrd's passion is educating and inspiring the youth, connecting them with nature, and working to create systems more in accordance with the human spirit and nature.

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Teacher

Jon Worthing

*Masters of Social Work with Concentration in Ecological Justice - University of Denver 2024
*Bachelors in Natural Resource Tourism - Colorado State University 2021
*Certificate of Youth Mentoring - CSU 2021

*CPR & Wilderness First Aid 2024

Jon is passionate about assisting youth on their journey to become the best versions of themselves. He has been tied into the Mentorship space since his first job working at an after school care program for K-8.

In college he became fascinated with the relationship between humans and nature. He studied the social and ecological impacts of the tourism industry, and how to repair our impacts to those spaces. While doing this, he helped run a mentorship program at Colorado State University called Campus Connections. This program, serving youth ages 8-18, provided youth a space to receive free therapy as they grow into themselves.

In Grad school he pursued a Social Work degree to refine his mentoring skills. He interned as a social worker at a high school, and is always looking for new knowledge to expand his thinking. He is currently inspired by the challenge of reconnecting humans with nature. This led him to pursue Ecological Justice as his degree concentration and start working at the Nature School Cooperative.

Teacher

Jess Whitney She/Her

*Bachelor’s of Science: University of Massachusetts, Amherst Natural Resource Conservation; Concentration in Wildlife Ecology/ Wildlife Biology
*CPR/First Aid certified ( 2023)
FEMA Multi-hazard Planning for *Childcare Certification (2023)
*CO Mandatory Reporter Training Certification (2023)
*CO Standard Precautions Certification (2023)

Jess is a bridge that guides pragmatic thinkers into the mysteries of nature. She grew up in urban Connecticut, on territory stolen from the Pequonnoc, Paugussett, Wappinger and Schagticoke people. She wandered North any chance she had, seeking snow, mountains, moose and solitude.

At 16 years old, she began funding her own higher education, knowing that her wild dreams do not fit the urban mold. She studied Wildlife, while taking courses in Herbalism, Yoga and Rock Climbing, where she began recognizing that regenerative ecology is equally important in both our personal systems and in our shared ecosystems, and that the two are profoundly connected. Jess was involved in several effective climate actions during this time, including catalyzing UMass to be the first Public University in history to divest from fossil fuels.

After completing wildlife research projects from New England to Tanzania, it became evident to Jess that she wanted to share experiences and her passion for nature. She began to focus her career in Nature Education, believing that knowledge is power to connect with ourselves, each other and the land around us. Jess was an Educator at a zoo and Audubon before she lived nomadically for several years, guiding tours in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. It wasn’t until 2023 that she realized educating the youth was a fulfilling, holistic practice; building intergenerational connections that support mutual social-emotional growth and deeper understandings of natural cycles.

Since leaping into the great web of Nature School Co-op, Jess has become rich with resources to continue her spiraling journey. She is now diving into unknown territories of her own ancestry and history, while independently studying Early Childhood Development. While not at Nature School Co-op, you can find Jess facilitating Youth Outdoor Programs through Highlands Ranch Community Association, guest teaching through Denver Public Schools, and curating nature- conscious fundraisers and events through the local music scene.