Peter Kindfield is an ecological educator, author, and former science coordinator for the New York City public school system.
Latest by this author
An ecological approach to learning uses outdoor play, storytelling, and shared experience to help children develop a kinship worldview—a deep recognition that living and nonliving parts of the Earth are fundamentally connected.
More about this author
Peter Kindfield has an MA in Child Development and a PhD in Science Education from the University of California, Berkeley and is certified in Permaculture Design. He has worked as a public school teacher and classroom researcher, science coordinator for the New York City public school system, professor of science education, and K–12 alternative school teacher and principal.
He hosts Explorations in Ecology meetups for children ages 4–15, where participants develop a kinship worldview through free play, storytelling, ancestral skills, and ecological inquiry in relatively wild and naturally managed ecosystems. Through activities such as gathering and growing food, building shelters, and working with fire, children explore both traditional knowledge and ecological concepts including systems thinking, biogeochemical cycles, photosynthesis, and respiration. Because the flow of activity is co-created, participants also deepen their agency, cooperation, and shared decision-making skills.
Kindfield is completing a forthcoming book from Chelsea Green Publishing, Explorations in Ecology: Playful Science-Rich Activities for Children and Their Adults, scheduled for publication in October 2026. He also writes about ecological education, kinship learning, and children’s outdoor experiences on Substack at Peter Kindfield PhD.External
Book Announcement: Explorations in Ecology for Children and their Adults
Substack | June | 2025
I have exciting news! I’ve signed a contract with Chelsea Green Publishing. We have agreed that they are going to publish Explorations in Ecology for Children and Their Adults! The book will include many of the activities already posted, but they will be revised and refined, and the book will offer much more information and ideas in a single user-friendly volume.
Publications by this author
Playful Science-Rich Activities for Children and Their Adul
Chelsea Green Publishing | October | 2026
Activities designed to help children and their adults develop a deeper relationship with the natural world, themselves and each other by learning essential ecological skills and understandings while playing in forests, fields, gardens and other ecosystems
Explorations in Ecology is based on the premise that—for those of us living within industrial civilization—the best response to current crisis is to transform our culture from isolation and competition to an ecophilic ecoculture that supports interdependence, regeneration, and cooperation.
Indigenous peoples have embodied this culture for tens of thousands of years, as did all of our ancestors. Explorations in Ecology is designed to equip adults (homeschoolers, eco-educators, and ecologically aware parents) to help children make this shift and prepare them for an uncertain future, emotionally and practically, while incorporating integrated traditional and modern perspectives. To these ends, the book will include:
- Activities that include permaculture gardening
- Gathering edible and medicinal plants
- Bushcraft skills like building fires and shelter
- And much more!
Also included, the reader will find educational suggestions for adults about how to support children engaging in the activities in each chapter and more generally about how to nurture educational environments and communities that support children learning and having transformative experiences while playing in forests, fields, and gardens.
In addition, science background about how ecosystems work as highly interdependent, regenerative systems is selected to give adults a clearer understanding of the ecological skills and concepts explored in each chapter’s activities. Science topics covered include:
- Systems theory
- The water and carbon cycles
- Photosynthesis
- The molecular kinetic theory of heat
- Soil composition
- Basic taxonomy
- Rocks and minerals
- Basics of ecological design and building.
Media by this author
Feature | 2023
I love learning and helping other people learn. This channel will include old videos from when I was Principal of The (Hippie) Farm School in Summertown, TN and new videos I'm making during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020. My new videos will include some Tai Chi Chuan instruction, some sourdough instruction, some juggling instruction and maybe some advice about home schooling and maybe some nature connection and nature-based science for my students.
