Wilderness Awareness School with Manon McPeters

Teach Outdoors

Manon McPeters is a lead nature instructor trainer at the Wilderness Awareness School which is based in Duvall, Washington. She has been working with the 8 shields framework for mentoring for over a decade and also grew up as a teen student of the Wilderness Awareness program. Her passions are engaging with the human body and observing the connection between brain and body and how they collaborate together.

Manon McPeters Instagram: asarum.caudatum
Wilderness Awareness School:
Instagram: wilderness_awareness
Twitter: @teamcoyote
Website: https://www.wildernessawareness.org

Kamana Independent Study courses: https://www.wildernessawareness.org/adult-programs/kamana/

Book: Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature by Jon Young, Ellen Haas, and Evan McGown. http://coyotesguide.com

The Art of Questioning is an approach used in coyote’s mentoring. I wonder how I can use questioning to support inquiry and nudge learning in new directions? This isn’t formulaic or a set of check boxes that we need to complete. We work with what our students are curious about. What is catching their attention?

Manon also talks about how we can use storytelling as a way to infuse and weave information during our interactions with our learners.

I also ask Manon to talk about the ‘trickster transformer’ mentoring approach. It’s a very powerful tool but we need to have a strong relationship with our learners first. Trust is everything!

Novelty Nature Note:

I’ve been learning how to identify the difference between a Coopers hawk and a Sharp Shinned hawk. The Cooper’s hawk is about 6 inches bigger than a Sharpie – but also their outer tail feathers are shorter than the rest of the tail feathers – so it looks rounded or like a rainbow 

Manon’s Novelty Nature Note:

Woodpeckers have retractable tongues! It spirals around their skull or even around their eyes.