Forest Educator with Ricardo Sierra | A Podcast for Revolutionary Conversations about Nature-Based Education · Ricardo Sierra

Awakening Imagination and Exploration at Trackers Earth: An Interview with Molly & Tony Deis

·1 hr 15 min·5 clips

Molly calls the "fundamental flaw" of forest school principals their overreliance on free play.

Ricardo Sierra welcomes Molly and Tony Dice from Trackers Earth. They trace the organization back to 2004 in the Portland, Oregon area, where it began with 40 kids in a single summer camp and gradually grew into a much larger set of day camps, youth programs, summer camps, after-school programs, and related offerings. The 20th anniversary hangs over the conversation, and they reflect on how long the work has been going on. The summer scale is now large: they describe serving about 2,000 kids a week for 11 weeks, with main program operations in the Portland metro area and three different drop-off and pickup sites in the summer. The discussion keeps circling back to service. Molly and Tony argue that a sense of service does not appear out of nowhere, but grows through steady culture and adult modeling over time. Play matters, too, but they treat play as a way to test and rehearse real skills, not as something separate from useful work or community life. Their youngest child becomes an example: at age two, she was practicing hand drill with a stick and cracking nuts by the fireplace, showing how even very small children can take part in real skills when the environment invites them. Food keeps coming up. They describe kids cutting fruit, making salad, boiling water for ramen, and choosing wild edibles in the forest over the vegetables on the dinner table. Independence is part of the point. The more children can do for themselves, the more they can start to understand why a task matters and how it might serve their family or community. Ricardo and the guests widen that idea into culture. They contrast a service-centered upbringing with a modern culture that often nudges children toward self-centered, human-centered thinking and distance from the more-than-human world. The discussion ends with leadership: they reflect on older youth helping in the kitchen and finding belonging, then on college students who built community and leadership through the work.

As heard by us

A clear look at how campcraft, service, and community shape childhood.

Trackers Earth treats outdoor education less like a camp schedule than a way of life. Molly and Tony Dice trace the growth from 40 kids in that first summer to about 2,000 kids a week in the Portland metro area, and the conversation keeps coming back to the same idea: service,…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you want the story behind a camp that grew from 40 kids to about 2,000 a week in Portland.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Forest Educator with Ricardo Sierra | A Podcast for Revolutionary Conversations about Nature-Based Education