Leila grew up in Kodiak, Alaska. As a child, she loved exploring Kodiak’s tide pools and mossy forests and climbing the big cottonwood tree by her house. After high school, she moved to Portland, Oregon where she received her bachelor’s degree in art from Reed College. She split her summers between Kodiak and Oregon, working with youth programs at the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge and an outdoor awareness school in Portland. During this time she developed a passion for experiential outdoor learning using art as a tool for environmental education.

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She then moved home to Alaska and worked for a year as an outdoor educator at the Campbell Creek Science Center in Anchorage before taking a job at Calypso Farm & Ecology Center in Fairbanks. She quickly felt at home in Fairbanks and now works as the Lead Educator at Calypso Farm, coordinating their field trips and summer camp programs as well as conducting outreach, planning, and teaching with the farm’s hands-on environmental education programs.

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Leila is passionate about helping people learn about and appreciate the interconnectedness of our local communities and the natural world.

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She is excited to teach for Small Forest School and to in turn help nourish others’ budding sense of wonder for this amazing place