About us

Who We Are

We are a registered charity in Canada (# 124125337 RR 0001) serving a global network and we are dedicated to helping educators, both inside and outside of schools, enhance environmental literacy among young learners.

Our quarterly Green Teacher magazine offers perspectives on the role of education in creating a sustainable future, practical articles, and ready-to-use activities for various age levels, as well as reviews of dozens of new educational resources.

We invite you to download a free sample issue of our magazine. As a subscriber, you will have access to
our enormous digital archive of magazine back issues and webinars. Subscribe to Green Teacher today.

Mission

We enhance environmental literacy among young learners by equipping both practicing and aspiring environmental educators in all educational contexts with innovative, relevant, evidence-based resources. 

Vision

Each successive generation of young learners is more environmentally literate than the last.

Values

Evidence-backed: All of our resources contain content based on evidence that reflects the scientific consensus. 

Inclusive: We actively engage with as many different communities as possible within the broad and diverse field of environmental education.

Mutualistic: The many collaborations we share with individuals and organizations are mutually beneficial.

Relevant: Our activities and resources reflect the ever-evolving needs of environmental educators.

Staff Members

Publisher
Tim Grant

Tim Grant is the publisher of Green Teacher. He co-edited the magazine with Gail Littlejohn from 1991 to 2012, at which point he became the editor. Over the years, he co-edited seven Green Teacher books, edited three and hosted the first 85 webinars. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Editorial, Marketing Assistant and Designer
Sofía Vargas Nessi

Sofía Vargas Nessi emigrated to Canada in 2013, and after pursuing her studies in publishing, joined Green Teacher in early 2017. Her love for exploration and all things nature as well as her passion for books and magazines have found a home with GT. Sofía enjoys working in English, French, and Spanish, and she recently started managing GT’s Spanish site Profesores Verdes. She is also in charge of the magazine’s design and digital distribution. Sofía spends her off-time exploring nature hotspots with her husband, birding, and dancing flamenco.

Board Members

Cam Collyer (Chair), education consultant, Ontario

Pat Clarke (Treasurer), retired teacher, British Columbia

Della Webster, teacher-educator, New Brunswick

Judith Benson, retired teacher, British Columbia

Tim Grant, publisher, Ontario

Regional Editors

A Brief History of Green Teacher

Green Teacher magazine was launched by Damian Randle in Wales in 1986. At the time, Damian was the education coordinator for the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth, and wanted the magazine to be international in scope. He met Tim Grant and Gail Littlejohn on a speaking tour of Canada, the United States, and Australia. A year later, he asked Tim and Gail to manage the Canadian and American subscriptions. In 1989, subscriptions jumped from 200 to 950. But by that time, it was clear that magazine was too Britain-focused in content to sustain the interest of North American readers. With Damian’s support, Tim and Gail launched a North American edition in 1991. The intention was that the two editions would share as much as 50% of their content. But the UK edition folded in 1995. Fortunately, by this time Tim and Gail had recruited regional editors from most Canadian provinces/territories and US states, and were able to encourage contributions from every corner of North America. The number of subscribers grew steadily, and occasional grants for special issues enabled Green Teacher to sustain itself. While most quarterly issues included innovative articles and activities on a wide variety of education topics, the editors produced thematic issues on topics such as indigenous perspectives (i.e. “Two-Eyed Seeing”), marine education, school gardening, climate change, invasive species, and international development.

In 2001, Green Teacher published three popular books and a few years later, three larger Teaching Green books. Each of the latter books was intended for different age groups, and contained the 50 best articles and activities that had been previously-published in the magazine. All the articles were updated by their authors, who received considerable input from 150 reviewers. By 2014, when the book Teaching about Invasive Species was published, Green Teacher had sold almost 60,000 copies of its previous books. (Two new climate change education books were published in 2017 and 2018.)

When the book and magazine publishing industry fell into a steep decline in 2012, the editors decided it was time to reinvent Green Teacher. Having launched a digital edition of the magazine and soon thereafter a series of webinars, the value of a subscription dramatically increased, both to individuals and to institutions. The core component of the reinvention was to catalog the articles and activities from all of the digital editions into 32 topic areas and four age levels. The editors similarly cataloged all of the webinars. Collectively, subscribers gained full access to the archives of articles and webinars. This added value of a subscription enabled Green Teacher to weather the storm better than many publishers. These expanded subscriptions were perceived as much more valuable to non-profits, schools, teacher-training institutions, and other education organizations.

One other noteworthy development was that in 2006, the editors began working with volunteer translators from around the world who translated Green Teacher articles into French and Spanish. Thanks to the contributions of over 150 translators, hundreds of translations were moved to new, unilingual websites in French and Spanish. In 2018, Green Teacher cataloged over 300 Spanish translations and began selling inexpensive subscriptions. We hope to do the same soon with our large collection of French translations.