The Council of Outdoor Educators of Ontario (COEO) is a non-profit, volunteer-based organization that promotes safe and high quality outdoor education experiences for people of all ages. It also acts as a professional body for outdoor educators in the province of Ontario. These aims are achieved through publishing Pathways: The Ontario Journal of Outdoor Education as well as an electronic newsletter, running an annual conferences and workshops, and working with kindred organizations as well as government agencies. COEO runs entirely on volunteer support and is managed by a Board of Directors.
Our Goals
- To establish and maintain professional practices in the field of outdoor education.
- To promote qualified leadership in outdoor education.
- To provide opportunities for professional growth.
- To promote the multiple values of outdoor education, both within and beyond our profession.
- To promote an active environmental ethic as a core value of education.
Meet the 2024-2025 Board of Directors!
President, Hilary Coburn
Hil is grateful to be working alongside this dedicated group of COEO leaders for her second year as President. When she was in OEE at Queen’s in 2011, she attended her first Fall Conference and officially fell in love with COEO. Over many summers spent canoe tripping and camp counselling at Camp Tanamakoon in Algonquin Park, Hil’s love of the outdoors grew strong. Working at Project Canoe, Outward Bound, Me to We, and a couple of seasons at the Outdoor Centre at Camp Wanakita continued to empower Hil to immerse her students in nature and community based programs. Two years of working with amazing students, staff and Elders at the Bronte Creek Project enforced Hil’s belief in the positive power of integrated outdoor education. She loved teaching and learning on Selkirk First Nation lands in Pelly Crossing, Yukon for two years; where her and her husband Arthur could be found cross country skiing, taking out trapping/canoeing field trips, and beading with community members.
Hil is passionate and committed to building and continuing important relationships with local knowledge keepers, Elders and indigenous community members. She will continue to support COEO’s forward movement with being a part of positive reconciliation and working to make COEO conferences and membership accessible to all. She is currently on maternity leave with her second mini-COEO’r and will return to work in the Bluewater District School Board in April 2025, following her outdoor learning and climate education/action passions. Hil can’t wait to see you all at Make Peace with Winter 2025 in January!!
Vice-President, Peggy Cheng (she/her)
Peggy’s original career plans was not in education but through her work in community stream restoration, the role of connecting people to nature ignited the spark for her to pursue outdoor education. She is currently on maternity leave from her role as Community Outreach and Education Coordinator with Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. She is currently caring for a new baby and enjoys tending to her rooftop garden, camping in the fall when there are fewer bugs, and travelling through the forest using her cross country skis! Peggy attended her first COEO conference in 2014 when she was studying at Queen’s University in the Outdoor and Experiential Education program.
She is excited to be a part of the board again in the role of vice president to support the work of COEO and her fellow board members in partnerships and advocacy. She is privileged to be an immigrant settler who lives, works, and plays on the territories of the Anishinabek, Mississaugas of the Credit, Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat peoples and is continuing to learn from our Indigenous neighbours to live out truth and reconciliation.
Past President, Karen O’Krafka (she/her)
Since September 2012, Karen is grateful to share her passion and experience in outdoor education on COEO’s Board of Directors with an inspiring board of OE educators! Karen’s continued hope is connecting Outdoor Educators with professional learning, inspiring collaborations, and adding an essential OE injection of fun, all essential as we celebrate over 50 years of COEO! Just a little younger than COEO, Karen offers two decades of diverse professional rolls and wonderful experience in Outdoor and Environmental Education, working and volunteering with incredible camps, outdoor education centres, schools and conservation authorities. She is the co-founder of Hardwood Nature School. Karen currently lives and works in Nogojiwanong as an education coordinator at Peterborough GreenUP, where she has the privilege to create and facilitate meaningful, action-oriented youth education. She weaves together the power of place-based outdoor and environmental education to increase youth and climate resilience – building, biking, planning, planting and all manners of transformative action and engagement. When not working she can often be spied weeding in her tangled garden, heard singing as she races around on all manners of bikes, and exploring the waters of Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg territory with her family.
Treasurer, Bill Schoenhardt
Bill is the jack of many trades at King City S.S. He is perhaps the only person in Ontario who teaches both Business and Outdoor Education! Bill has been on the BoD as Treasurer for an aggregate of 10 years, and acknowledges that COEO conferences are much more enjoyable then economic teachers’ conferences! A graduate of the Queen’s OEE program and the Schulich School of Business, Bill endeavors to be experiential in his all his teaching – be it capital markets or canoeing. Bill makes his home in York Region, spending as much time as possible in the out-of-doors with his wife and daughters. In the upcoming year it is Bill’s goal to have COEO end the year with a surplus.
Secretary, Ben Blakey
Ben Blakey is an outdoor educator, teacher, and researcher currently working as an Outdoor Education Specialist in the Toronto Outdoor Education Schools (TOES) for the Toronto District School Board (TDSB). Previously he worked in independent schools in Toronto, most recently as an Environmental Education teacher & Ecoleader at the Toronto French School, as well as being on staff for some time at Crescent, Mabin, and Montcrest. He has an extensive background in outdoor, experiential, and environmental education, having taught students from grades K – 12. His research interests include ecopsychology, summer camps, exercise neuroscience, and integrating ‘contact with nature’ at various levels of the education system. Ben is serving his 10th year on the COEO board of directors, and has worked previously on the editorial board for COEO’s academic journal Pathways: the Ontario Journal of Outdoor Education for 4 years. He is the father of 2 young girls, and is excited to be part of COEO’s work in the upcoming 2023/24 year.
Volunteer Coordinator, Devin Mutic
Devin is a philosopher, educator, landscape photographer, and wilderness traveller. With an aim toward environmental praxis, his philosophical investigations wind the intersecting rivers of nature philosophy and education, finding paths toward a world of ecocommunal care and flourishing for individuals and communities, human and nonhuman alike.
With a master’s degree focused on environmental philosophy and education, Devin has worked, played, and thought with numerous forest schools, outdoor education organizations, and environmental learning centres throughout Canada. Deeply rooted in Ontario, he enjoys nothing more than the myriad interconnections of lakes, rivers, forests, rocky outcrops, and living beings of this place.
Devin is the Director of the Headwaters Wilderness Program, an educational organization guided by the purpose of developing, implementing, and practicing education for the present time, aimed toward the long-term. Centred around enabling entwined relationships with nature and with community, Headwaters utilizes intentional wilderness travel as an ideal medium for a wild, flourishing education.
Honoured to be part of COEO’s board, Devin could not be more excited to support the work of COEO and its members. As an organization, COEO reminds us that, whatever else may come, the moon still rises to brighten the night and the wind still blows to dance with the leaves. Much like winter – that most wonderful of seasons – which calls upon us to live deliberately and, in the process, reveals a life fully lived, Devin finds the value of COEO to be in maintaining the spark of that joyous enmeshment of life, kindling an educational community such that it will never go out.
Director-at-Large, Valerie Freemantle
Val grew up in the suburbs of the Greater Toronto Area. She is grateful for the adults in her life who brought her outside as a tween and young adult. She remembers the magic that the outdoors had to help her become a more confident, calmer, and fuller version of herself in those key formative years. The first chance she got to work in outdoor education was as in 2012 undergrad co-op student at the Scarborough Outdoor Education School (Kearney, ON) run by the Toronto District School Board. She knew she had found something special and after a couple of detours she was able to return to outdoor education.
After completing her M.Sc. at Queen’s researching changes in plant cover in Canada’s arctic, she enrolled in the OEE program at Queen’s. Since graduating in 2020, she has been working as an outdoor educator at Foley Mountain Conservation Area (Rideau Valley Conservation Authority) and supply teaching in both traditional schools and outdoor education spaces across eastern and southern Ontario. In Spring 2023, she completed Outward Bound’s Training Academy. In addition to the technical skills, this program was the encouraging nudge Val needed to start her own business in outdoor education. As a mixed race person and a member of the LGBTQ+ community, she wants to use her work and role in COEO as a way to make outdoor education more accessible to newcomers to Canada as well as those who may not feel welcomed in traditional outdoor education spaces. Val joined the board last year after co-chairing the 2023 fall COEO conference “Opening Doors to the Outdoors”. As a board member, she co-chaired the 2024 Make Peace With Winter “Weaving Warmth” conference and several other board initiatives. She is honoured to be re-elected to this year’s board.
Director-at-Large, Angel Suarez Esquivel (he/his/him)
Student and Community Engagement Specialist / Senior Nature Interpreter
Nature name: Hummingbird
Angel is an Early Childhood Educator (ECE) who specializes in outdoor pedagogy. Along with his Early Childhood Education and Teaching diploma from Humber College, Angel has a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Engineering and Sustainability. He works at the Humber Arboretum and Centre for Urban Ecology in Toronto as a Student and Community Engagement Specialist, coordinating the ECE field placement for outdoor education and the Learning by Leading program for Humber College and University of Guelph-Humber students. Finally, as a part of the Arb’s educational team, he continues to work with college students along with the general community and children of all ages.
Angel has a special connection to nature as it is the place he feels most comfortable, and he knows that nature always has something new to teach him. Originally from Mexico, he advocates for Latine communities to have fair access to outdoor spaces and recreation. He is passionate about removing barriers to nature and his goal is to connect more people to the outdoors.
Director-at-Large, Kim Squires (she/her)
Kim is looking forward to supporting on COEO’s Board of Directors again this year! She was first introduced to COEO while completing her Bachelor of Education at Wilfrid Laurier University in 2012 and has loved it ever since. Kim hopes to help grow COEO’s community and increase supports for COEO’s existing community this year. She is an early childhood educator and teacher and now works as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph. While teaching in the Bachelor of Applied Science Child Studies program, Kim has the privilege of working with many pre-service early childhood educators and aims to help students understand the critical importance of outdoor play and learning opportunities for children and adults. Her research program focuses on early childhood education and care, with a particular focus on outdoor play. Among many things, she is curious about how we design outdoor learning environments, how these spaces are accessible to a variety of learners, and how this impacts children’s (and adults’) play, learning, and development. In her own outdoor play, Kim loves backcountry camping, jogging, and exploring waterfalls, mountains, and glacier lakes.
Director-at-Large, Rayanna Santiago
Ray is grateful and excited to join the COEO Board of Directors! This year she’s completing her Bachelor of Education at York University, and coaching boxing and Muay Thai to youth. During the summer, Ray is a program leader for Headwaters Wilderness Program where she prepares and guides wilderness experiences. In her spare time, Ray can be found somewhere in the woods, whether it be on a canoe in a backcountry lake, in a tent under fall foliage, or attempting to snowboard and cross country ski through snowy terrain. Ray is always eager to further her abilities as an outdoor educator and loves finding opportunities to learn from and with our non-human kin.
Membership Secretary, Lee McArthur
Lee McArthur and happy to be here! I am a seasoned educator, experienced school principal, and feet on the ground teacher / learner at heart. I have worked in the public system with all grades from K to 12. I have also been lucky to be a teacher at forest schools.
As an educator I have continuously brought in local expertise and forged alliances with conservation authorities, community groups, local businesses, and funding organizations. These alliances are essential for the work. Together we plant trees, naturalize school yards, build outdoor spaces, facilitate outdoor experiences, deepen our learning and generally get children and youth outdoors and connected with nature.
My journey in education continues as principal of Kikendaasogamig Elementary School within Neyashiinigmiing, community of the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation (CNUFN). I am honoured to work with the CNUFN community in this role.
Concurrently, I am working on a PhD at Trent University in education for sustainability, specifically wild pedagogies which foster relationship and eco-connection with the more-than-human-world. In the two first years of my PhD I have had the good fortune to present workshops at EECOM, Take Me Outside, Wild Pedagogies and COEO’s wonderful fall 2023 conference Open the Doors to the Outdoors. I have published an article based on my conference presentation at Wild Pedagogies in Sweden (2023) in COEO’s Pathways journal (Spring 2024).
I have been an outdoors enthusiast all my life, hiking, canoeing, kayaking, wandering and often just sitting and being outside, anywhere outside – drinking it all in. As a young child and as an adult my greatest solace and feeling of deepest belonging has always been through connection with the natural world.
Like many of you, I feel the urgency of the work done by COEO and its members. We have an important calling to reforge and strengthen connections between our children, youth and young adults and the natural world that sustains us.
I am thrilled to be on the board of COEO and look forward to working with the amazing COEO team and membership to further these goals through supporting and building this wonderful organization.