Louise Zimanyi

Louise Zimanyi is currently a professor of early childhood education in the School of Health Sciences at the Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning in Toronto, Canada. Working in the areas of children, play and creativity, curriculum design and leadership and advocacy, a key focus of her work is also to demonstrate and provide cross-disciplinary leadership in nature education and connections for students, faculty, children and families, and the wider community of practice implementing nature education and pedagogy. Louise Zimanyi’s research interests include: better understanding if and to what extent time spent in nature and natural settings influences young children’s play, learning and holistic development – and their connection to the natural world; understanding children’s play patterns including risky and outdoor active play to help guide early childhood educators, as emerging nature pedagogues in natural environments that spark engagement and learning alongside children; and how improving access to nature strengthens ecological literacy and stewardship of the natural world. Louise Zimanyi’s interests include growing the forest and nature school movement in Canada (as a certified forest school practitioner) and globally; as a member of the founding advisory group, continuing to actively shape and develop PlayFutures, a recently launched global innovation and research network on learning through play; building on past global work in early childhood development as the director of a global network working to explore the application of research and practice to leadership advocacy at the global level i.e. the implementation and monitoring of the UN Sustainable Development Goals as they relate to the environment (forest, oceans and climate change), learning and education