Summer 2025 Programs:
June 9-13: For girls ages 10-14
June 16-20: For girls ages 6-11
Earth, Art, & Heart Skills
Empowering girls through connection with earth, each other, & their inherent creative power.
What is meant by Earth, Art, and Heart Skills?
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Earth Skills
We have a vision of girls feeling empowered and at home upon wild landscapes that may call to them in their lifetime, as well as feeling versed in the ways of land stewardship. Earth Skills focus on wilderness survival skills, homesteading and gardening skills, and the skillful use of natural materials.
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Art Skills
We teach functional art skills to support your daughter in feeling confident, self-sufficient, and empowered to channel her inherent creativity and capacity for beauty-making using natural materials.
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Heart Skills
In our outdoor learning environment, we offer sharing circles, song and dance, and teach wellness skills so that your daughter can feel empowered to authentically connect with herself and her peers. Heart Skills are aimed at supporting lifelong health and wellness.
Dates & Cost
Week 1: June 9-13 (For girls ages 10-14)
Week 2: June 16-20 (For girls ages 6-11)
Time 9a-2:15p
Cost: $275 per week
Our Vision
The design and structure of our programming is centered around empowering girls and young women with skills that resource them in heart, mind, body, and spirit through meaningful connection with the natural world, one another, and with self.
We recognize the unique challenges girls and young women face as they come of age and are more deeply immersed in inquiry related to who they are, what matters to them, and what gifts they have to offer the world. Just as every wild being in the tapestry of life has an essential role to fulfill on the earth, so, too, do we believe in the precious and unique gifts girls and young women have to bring into the world. We aim to support and resource them with tools, knowledge, and psycho-spiritual wellness skills that grow this capacity, as well as strengthen resilience.
It is our vision and hope that every girl and young woman feel her inherent worth, experience the gift of feeling seen and celebrated for who she is, and feel empowered to live out her dreams while tending well to her mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional needs.
About Us
Girls’ Nature-Connection Program Facilitators
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Shae Keane
Ecotherapist; Wilderness Guide; Wilderness First Responder
Shae has a passion for facilitating transformative nature-connected experiences through relationship with plants, animals, wild landscape, and authentic community. She is particularly inspired by the meaningful impact animals have on people and loves partnering with them in the educational and therapeutic process.
From 2016-2018, Taylor and Shae developed and co-directed Sowing Seeds, a program aimed at bringing nature-based education and food literacy skills to local at-risk youth. Prior to this, Shae worked as a senior field guide in the field of wilderness therapy with children and adolescents.
Shae holds a Masters in Clinical Mental Health. During her graduate program, she co-created a Nature-Based Therapy graduate certificate, along with colleague Dr. Bethany Novotny. When it comes to individuals' healing journey, she understands the earth to be the first healer and teacher. She continues to pursue a vision of making nature-based therapy and nature-based education accessible to all in East Tennessee.
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Background
B.A., Women’s Studies, 2013
Senior Field Guide, working with children, adolescents, and young adults, Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness, 2016-2019
Ecotherapy Graduate Certificate, Pacifica University: Spring 2019
Intern Adolescent & Young Adult Therapist with Journey Center for the Healing Arts, Fall 2019-Summer 2020
M.A., Clinical Mental Health Counseling: Spring 2022
Lead Trainer & Program Development, Emerald Arrow, wilderness therapy program, 2021-2022
Wilderness First Responder, 2018-present
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Rachel Barrick
Nature-Based Arts Instructor
I’m Rachel Barrick, and I am over the moon to be a part of the Earth School team! A recent East Tennessee State University Art & Design graduate, I have a deep passion for craft art originating from nature - weaving, welding, ceramics, fibers, woodworking, etc.! There is something so wonderful about taking what mother nature has provided and turning it into something of equal beauty but unique to us! I am excited to share all of these wonderful processes I have learned with others, and how they can really help guide one’s emotions and state of mind. When I am not an instructor or creating art, you can often find me enjoying a hike in the starlight, snuggling with my cat Momo, or scuba diving with whale sharks!
My work with children in the past has included daycare instructor, special needs and middle school girls soccer coach, and countless fun weeks as a camp counselor. Working with young children has always been the goal! So finally my dream to combine my love for the arts, nature, and education for children is coming to fruition at the Earth School!
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Trini Sampson
Special Guest Instructor: Dance & Movement Facilitator
Trini is a student of life, a dancer at heart, and a lover of nature & movement. She lives with her 3 felines and 1 canine furry all beautiful souls that fill her life with unconditional love.
She began dance at the age of 4 and continued through her 20's. Through her life
Trini has done extensive training in many different modalities of movement, as Movement Medicine, 5 Rhythms, Azul, Kung Fu, Tai Chi, Continuum, and she received her 230 hour Yoga Teacher Training Certification at InnerSeaYoga in 2014.
Dance has always been her passion, her love, and after a hip replacement in her 50's, through the support of a loving friend, Trini started a dance class to bring more movement and embodiment into people's lives.
She has now been holding her Soul Medicine Dances for 8 years, a free movement expression-a dance from the inside out, accompanied with soul inspiring music in support of your soul-dance journey
Soul Medicine Conscious Movement practice is held from a safe space where you can 'be who you came here to be and express the unique dancer that is inside of you'
We were born to move and dance! We just need to re-member! Movement is Medicine!
"BE who YOU came here to be"
