Creating Outdoor Spaces that Connect Children to the Natural World with Nancy Striniste (November 6, 2025)

Nature play can awaken children’s senses, challenge their bodies, inspire their imaginations and build self-confidence. In order to grow up healthy and happy, children need abundant, unstructured time to play and explore in the natural world, but today’s children rarely have the opportunity to roam free outdoors. Creating nature play spaces that are inviting and engaging for children AND good for the planet is a great solution. Based on her book, with rich, inspiring images from around the world, detailed DIY project instructions, and an abundance of themed lists of child-friendly plants including many North American natives, author, educator, and landscape designer Nancy Striniste explains why and how to bring the beauty, adventure, and sustainability of nature play to backyards, schoolyards, churchyards, neighborhood parks, early childhood settings, and more.

Nancy Striniste is the founder and principal designer at EarlySpace, LLC, and has a unique background as both a landscape designer and an early childhood educator. For more than four decades she has worked with schools, childcare centers, municipalities, and organizations to create sustainably designed natural play and learning spaces in the mid-Atlantic and beyond, and to teach teachers and others about how to use the outdoors for teaching and learning. Nancy is the author of Nature Play at Home: Creating Outdoor Spaces that Connect Children to the Natural World (Timber Press 2019) and is the former National Policy Liaison for Green Schoolyards America where she focused on curating the pandemic-era National Outdoor Learning Library and on advocacy for the Living Schoolyards Act, a bill before the US Senate. After more than 20 years living and practicing in Arlington, Virginia, she has recently relocated to Bensalem, Pennsylvania and is eager to connect with colleagues in the area!

Program Fee: $15 (Members, enter your code at checkout to receive your 20% discount.)

All lectures will be held virtually using Zoom. They will be recorded and shared with everyone who registers for a short time.