Capital Campaign Cabinet

Jacob is the Executive Director of Camp Kawartha, an award winning outdoor education centre and summer camp. The camp operates as a residential outdoor centre, a summer camp and as an innovative environmental centre.

His passion is teaching children to love and protect their local environment. He holds a teaching certificate and a Master’s in Education and has worked in the field of outdoor education and camping for 30 years.

Jacob received the Ontario Society of Environmental Educators “Leadership in Environmental Education Award.” In 2007, Jacob was awarded the Richards Education Award for excellence in Natural History Education from Ontario Nature. He co-teaches part time at Trent University a course in environmental education. Jacob has developed, in partnership with Trent’s Faculty of Education, an “Eco Mentor” certificate program for teacher candidates and recently an Eco-Mentor certificate program with Fleming College for Early Childhood Educators. This approach to environmental education has been adopted by 4 other universities.

Jacob has published a number of articles on children, nature and the environment and has coauthored a book on nature activities throughout the seasons with Drew Monkman called The Big Book of Nature Activities. The Big Book of Nature Activities was a winner at the Green Festival Book show, a double gold winner of the Nautilus Book Awards, a silver medal winner of the Moonbeam children’s book awards and a finalist for the Indie (Independent) book awards. He is a frequent keynote speaker and has been invited to present to the American Summit for Sustainability, Canadian Roundtable for Pollution prevention and at the Ontario Camping Association’s annual conference.

Jacob conceived and spearheaded the construction of one of Canada’s most sustainable buildings at Trent University. This unique environment centre educates children and future teachers about sustainable living practices, alternative energy and conservation.

Collaborating with community leaders from education, public health and local conservation groups and funded through the Ontario Trillium Foundation’s Collective Impact Stream, Jacob and his colleagues are working on establishing an environmental framework for our community. Called the Pathway to Stewardship & Kinship – the framework will articulate key benchmarks and experiences all children should have access to throughout their development in order to become engaged and active stewards. The Pathway to Stewardship is one of the objectives in the Peterborough Kawartha’s successful application to become a UNESCO Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development.