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Ken Finch to present an Environmental Lecture at three locations across Pennsylvania
PAEE would like to thank the following co-sponsors: Saint Vincent College, Pennsylvania College of Technology, and Lehigh University for helping sponsor these lectures. Mr. Finch’s lecture is titled, “The Play Imperative: Restoring the Nature of Childhood.” There will be opportunities for discussion following the presentation. Mr. Finch’s lecture will be based on Richard Louv’s book, “The Last Child in the Woods.” He will point out reasons to consider how nature deficit leads to problems in children’s health and well-being and how to look for solutions. Mr. Finch is the president and founder of Greens Hearts Institute for Nature in Childhood, a new non-profit organization dedicated to bringing children and nature back together. Mr. Finch has spent more than three decades in the environmental education profession, primarily in nature centers and museums. He has worked extensively as a “front-line” educator, and has also directed two large nature centers, leading each through periods of dramatic growth and success. Mr. Finch’s nature center experience has encompassed all aspects of administration and management as well as fundraising, public and scholastic education, and land management. He has also served in middle management positions with two children’s museums, overseeing their education programs and natural science activities. He founded Green Hearts in 2005 in Omaha, Nebraska. Green Hearts is in the planning process for its signature project – a nationwide network of nature preschools sited in multi-acre green spaces, where the students will play and explore daily, rain or shine. Green Hearts is also working on landscape designs to facilitate “nature play,” with educational advocacy about the value of childhood play in natural areas, and as a consulting advisor for other organizations interested in starting their own preschools or developing nature play features. Immediately prior to starting Green Hearts, Mr. Finch served as the Executive Director of the Audubon Society Minnesota, the state office of the National Audubon Society. He holds a master’s degree in environmental education from Antioch – New England Graduate School, and a bachelor’s degree in sociology and psychology from Dickinson College in Carlisle. He has been a volunteer with the Association of Nature Center Administrators (ANCA) including two years as its national president and a total of seven on the board of directors. Mr. Finch has served on state environmental education boards in Minnesota and Connecticut, on the national board of the American Nature Study Society, on the board of the Friends of Loren Eiseley, and on several local boards and advisory councils. He has been a frequent presenter at regional and national conferences and has served as a consultant with over two-dozen nature centers and similar organizations. He has received the “Excellence in Science Education” award from the National Science Teachers Association, the “President’s Award” from ANCA and regional recognition from the U.S. Department of Education as an “Education Hero.”
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