Emily Vera (she/her)
Director of Child Care
Early Childhood Educator,
Special Needs, Bachelor of Fine Arts

Emily is the co-founder and Director of Terra Nova Nature School. As a child, she spent countless hours wandering the forests and fields of Vermont, where she discovered the magic of slow, unstructured time outdoors. She believes the landscape and the more-than-human spark creativity, imagination, and deep learning Today, Emily is passionate about growing a community that cares for one another and for the earth, honoring the wisdom of those who have tended these lands before us and those who continue to do so now. She is grateful to live and work on the unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations (Vancouver).

Emily holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a Specialization in Theatre performance from Concordia University, as well as an Early Childhood Special Education Certificate. She has been teaching in early years programs for over 30 years. Her work is focused on connection and relationships, braiding children and families, educators and place together.

In her free time, Emily can often be found cooking in the kitchen, tending her garden, or caring for her bees. She cherishes being a “mom-friend” to her two adventurous adult children and going for Hong Kong style breakfasts with her amazing husband.

 

Chloe Nakata (she/her)
Early Childhood Educator Assistant

Chloe is an Early Childhood Education Assistant currently pursuing her ECE certification at Langara College. For the last several years Chloe has been an integral part of the Parent & Tot program at TNNS as well as teaching various programs at Thompson Community Centre, including dance classes for children. She strives to bring creativity, warmth, and joy into her teaching practice. Chloe has also completed outdoor camp counsellor training, which deepened her passion for nature-based learning.

Chloe is interested in art therapy for children; combining her love of artistic expression with her commitment to supporting others’ emotional and spiritual well-being.

She embraces a natural, eco-friendly lifestyle and enjoys integrating these values into her work with children. When she’s not teaching, Chloe loves spending time outdoors—running and swimming with her dog Alphonse, camping in the mountains, and foraging wild plants to make herbal teas and natural home remedies. A dedicated vegetarian and enthusiastic home cook, she finds joy in preparing nourishing meals and living in harmony with the environment.

 

Debbie Leobe (she/her)
Early Childhood Educator,
Bachelor of Education, BA History

Debbie is very excited to be part of the TNNS team this year. She brings knowledge and experience from her previous role working as Lead Educator in a 100% outdoor program. Here she saw how a connection to nature creates opportunities for growing strong, resilient, curious, empathetic and kind humans.

Debbie has been working as an educator for over 20 years, she trained as a teacher in the UK and her passion for working with preschoolers began when her own children attended a parent participation preschool and she discovered the joy and curiosity unique to this age group.

Debbie spent her childhood living on a remote Island in the Irish Sea and believes that the best education happens when children are engaged in hands on exploration, building relationships with others and the world around them.

Debbie loves being outside with her partner and teenagers, especially time spent near the ocean or up in the mountains. She is also taking on the challenge of learning to play the ukulele and is looking forward to sharing music and song at school this year.

 

 

Ilyssia Borges (they/them)
Bachelor of Fine Art

Ilyssia is an educator and artist from Winnipeg, Manitoba (Treaty 1 territory). They initially received their integrated Bachelor of Arts and Education at the University of Winnipeg in 2018 with a focus on high school years, history and French. Each practicum placement in the K-12 system showed there’s something to love, admire, and cherish teaching any age group, from early years’ curiosity to teenagers’ determined passion. They taught as a substitute teacher for multiple school divisions in Winnipeg, which meant that every day was unique and it was important to make quick connections with a full class of new students!

In 2019, Ilyssia moved to Vancouver to study illustration at Emily Carr with the goal of learning how to merge their artistic practice with their role as an educator. The constant rain was a big shock – they miss the bright winter sun bouncing off packed snow, but are forever in awe of the mountains. One big dream for Ilyssia is to illustrate a children’s book. They usually volunteer to read at closing circle because they love to be close to the story and see all the hidden details in the pictures. Their favourite books are the Septimus Heap/Magyk series, Bunnicula (the graphic novel), and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

When it comes to the outdoors, Ilyssia is the oldest sister to SIX younger brothers, so they’re used to a couple grass stains in the name of play. They grew up camping, foraging for blueberries, tobogganing, skating, biking, and fishing. They recently visited Spirit Sands Provincial Park, Manitoba’s desert, for the very first time and fell in love with the ancient glacial riverbed that created sand dunes. They can’t wait to return to try to locate the cacti in the region.

 

Jacob Power (they/he)
Bachelor in Global Resource Systems

Jacob is a queer/genderqueer settler with Irish ancestry living on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ Nations. Jacob grew up along the coastlines, rivers, and freshwater lakes in the Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, and the traditional territories of the Huron-Wendat, Ojibway, Odawa, Potawatomie, and Haudenosonee Peoples.

Their educational background is in Land and Food Systems, where they explored the intersections of agriculture, food justice, and ecological well-being, with an interest in understanding how education can support the development of cultural, relational, and ecological responsibility. They are always learning about how to be a better steward of our social-ecological environment and are excited to embark on this journey alongside students.

They weave a calm, curious presence with an animated energy to their facilitation and are passionate about nurturing learning environments that center care, inquiry, and social development. In their free time they are a photographer, love to bike and explore the mountains with friends, and watch films.

 

Katharina Scharnweber (she/her)
Early Childhood Educator, Waldorf Teacher,
Degree in Economics and Graphic Design

Katharina grew up in a small town in East Germany, where the forest was her sanctuary and storyteller. As a child, she named trees and secret hiding spots, imagining a world filled with gnomes, fairies, and kings. “It was a world of scents and sounds found only in nature,” she recalls—a place that continues to shape her path today.

She went on to study Economics and Graphic Design, earning university degrees in both fields. After working in Berlin, her curiosity and sense of adventure led her to travel the world. Along the way, she worked with nonprofit children’s organizations and learned from cultures preserving traditional, nearly-lost ways of living.

Katharina is passionate about handcrafting with natural materials and believes deeply in the creative, grounding power of nature. She is a certified Early Childhood Educator and a Forest and Nature School Practitioner through the Child & Nature Alliance of Canada. In 2025, she completed a two-year training as a Certified Waldorf Early Childhood Teacher (ages 0–7).

Her teaching is guided by the words of William Wordsworth: “Let nature be your teacher.” Katharina brings a calm, playful spirit into her work—like a gentle breeze that invites wonder and presence.

You’ll often find her in the garden or at Iona Beach with her family: her son digging happily in the mud, her husband gazing at the sky, their curious cat sniffing logs nearby, and Katharina carving quietly beside them, deeply connected to the earth and its stories.

 

Misuzu Chiu (she/her)
Early Childhood Educator

Since an early age, Misuzu wanted to become an early childhood educator. However, she decided to shift her dream and studied to be an ESL teacher to young children when she found joy in learning English. When she moved to Canada, she pursued her original dream and received an Early Childhood Education Diploma and an Infant and Toddler Educator Certificate.

Misuzu has been with Terra Nova Nature School since its first year. Although she had no background experience in outdoor education, she was motivated by her love of nature and passion for early childhood education. She started as a volunteer and learned what it meant to be an outdoor educator in an early childhood setting. Growing up in a rural area in Japan, she has a strong connection to where she is from. She has many vivid memories from her childhood, she can still remember how the air smelled during rice harvesting, how when walking into the silkworm farmhouse, she could hear their silent chatter, and how the fireflies danced in the darkness. It is her hope that she helps the children to create memories in nature that they can look back on fondly when they grow up. She believes having such memories will help them shape love and care for the land that they live on.

Outside of TNNS, Misuzu enjoys music and lives with her husband, two children and two dogs who so lovingly let her sing and play the ukulele whenever she wants.

 

 

Natasha Damiano (she/her)
Bachelor of Anthropology, Master of Anthropology

Natasha a current PhD candidate (occupational science) with an MA in anthropology. She is also the mom of a sixteen-year-old former nature school participant. Natasha holds a Certificate in Advanced Teaching and Learning from the University of British Columbia and brings a talent for instructional design using creative and arts-based methods.

Passionate about both participatory music and the outdoors, she is inspired by the challenges and opportunities presented through outdoor music education for children. Natasha teaches beginner ukulele and started teaching in the Beyond 4 Walls program 2 years ago. She has helped develop the Nature Notes program, which inspired the new Music ’n’ Nature home-learners program. She co-designed and ran music-based summer camps at the UBC Chan Centre for the performing arts for two summers (2023-2024). Her interest in outdoor, placed-based education can be traced back to 2009 when she helped create a video for the International Society of Ethnobiology about the history of their organization.

As an educator Natasha values diversity, cultivating trust and reciprocal care, and community building through learning. In her spare time Natasha enjoys ‘thrifting’ with her teenager, and playing music and dancing in the great Vancouver ‘swing dance’ community.

 

Sarah Yaugo (she/her)
Early Childhood Educator, Bachelor of Arts

Sarah is a licensed Early Childhood Educator with a B.A. in psychology, and additional university coursework in drawing, sculpting, and primary (K-5) education pedagogy.  She has worked as a teacher with children aged 0-11 throughout the United States and Metro Vancouver for over 15 years, and has facilitated outdoor, nature-based programs for families since autumn of 2019.

Sarah, born and raised on the unceded, ancestral territories of the Tongva and Acjachemen nations(Orange County, California), is deeply committed to nurturing and supporting the curiosity, capability, and potential of children while honouring each family’s culture, traditions, ways of knowing, and role as children’s first teachers.  She is excited to mindfully interact with and observe elements of nature with families, helping to cultivate respectful, reciprocal, and sustainable relationships with natural spaces explored together.

Sarah’s favourite pastimes include visiting beaches and local gardens with her son and daughter, local and international travel, sculpting, swimming, cooking, with a passion for altering and perfecting recipes to satisfy the most challenging dietary needs and preferences, inline skating on smooth, paved trails, and experimenting with gardening on her balcony.

 

Shannon Emery (she/her)
Early Childhood Educator, BC Teaching Certification, Bachelor of Arts

Shannon is so excited to begin her teaching adventure at Terra Nova Nature School this year! With a bachelor of Arts and both her PDP and ECE certification, she has spent the last 4 years working at a nature based preschool on the North Shore, and the last 13 years working with children and youth of all ages. She loves being outdoors with children, celebrating and encouraging the curiosity, wonder, and sense of adventure that we all have within us. Together, we nurture an understanding of and appreciation for the natural world, looking for inspiration in the small and beautiful moments. She believes experiential learning is the spice of life, and that children have so many unique and wonderful ways to communicate their interests and ways of being!

Shannon loves building relationships with her students and families, believing that strong, reciprocal relationships are the foundation upon which all learning takes place. She is drawn to inquiry based learning and concept based pedagogy, and enjoys creating documentation and collecting and sharing traces of learning with the students. She is passionate about social and emotional learning, believing it is an integral part of the early years experience. She loves connecting and building a sense of community through the art of storytelling, and can’t wait to exchange stories with the families and students at Terra Nova!

When Shannon is not out exploring with her students, she loves to spend time with friends and family; touring around the city by bike, hiking, reading, and camping! She recently completed the West Coast Trail, and is already looking ahead to what the next challenging adventure might be!

 

Trisha Barbarona (any pronoun)
Early Childhood Educator Assistant

Trisha is a non-binary Filipinx immigrant settler on the unceded and ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. They have lived in many countries including Brunei and the Philippines and have called Coast Salish Territories their home since 2010.

Trisha has a background in Early Childhood Education from Sprott Shaw College and Langara and a variety of experience teaching and caring for children and youth aged 1-18 years old from 2018-onwards. They have spent 4 years in the field of Outdoor Education and counting. They believe in having the land and water as our teacher and to always centre Indigenous practices and the traditional ways of knowing and being.

The knowledge and experience they bring to the table lies in native plant horticulture, wetland conservation, agriculture and food justice and they aim to continue learning further about protecting our waterways and Indigenous food and land sovereignty. Currently, they are a part of the Wednesday Trailblazer team and have been since 2022. When not teaching, Trisha goes roller skating, dancing ballet and takes their dog, Tanya, on long walks in the forest