Our Team
Our team consists of talented educators, from diverse educational and outdoor backgrounds who bring a balance to traditional academics with outdoor nature immersion.
Dawn Robinette
FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Growing up, Dawn spent endless hours playing and exploring the untamed natural areas of Wisconsin. As a young adult, Dawn pursued a career in architecture and interior design. She graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a bachelor of Architecture in 1993, where the school’s philosophy of Learning By Doing resonated with her. After establishing a design firm and retail store with her husband, she returned to her studies at the University of Washington in 2005 to pursue a teaching career. While at the University of Washington, Dawn’s master’s thesis was based on design-build and she spent 9 months, as a teacher’s assistant, working on a design-build project in which her class built a multigenerational home for the indigenous community of Yakima, WA. Dawn also taught young adults at Virginia Commonwealth University and the Art Institute of Orange County. When Dawn became a mother, she returned to her roots of romping about and playing in the outdoors. She saw, through the eyes of an adult, the value of nature in childhood and the impact it had on her own daughter. After enrolling her child in a nature kindergarten program, a seed was planted and Dawn began her own nature school combining her passions for learning by doing and the outdoors. Since those early days the school has grown and Dawn has spent many a day learning more about nature, primitive skills and how best to share that with children in inspiring and meaningful ways.
Stacey
Lead Instructor for Grades 1-8
Stacey began working with schools in 2008. She started teaching professionally in 2011 as a science and math teacher for grades 6-12 at a private school in Orange County, where all classes were taught one-to-one.
She believes in a whole-brain, multi-sensory approach to education, meeting the child where they are intellectually and emotionally, working toward making academic concepts relevant to the child's interests. Most of all, she believes Nature is our greatest teacher.
Inspired by nature-based educational experiences, she has a love for many ancestral skills including cordage, weaving, fire by friction, plant identification, building shelter, and environmental awareness.
Stacey grew up in rural coastal South Carolina and graduated from a small liberal arts college on the west coast of Florida with a BA in Biology. New College of Florida is an honors college that embraces an individualized approach to education by replacing grades with narrative evaluations so the student can focus on their personal education and life goals. It was a profound experience that laid the foundation for Stacey’s individualized approach to education.
Gladiz
Spanish/Cooking Teacher for Grades 1-8
Originally from California’s Central Valley, Gladiz relocated to Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 2009, where she quickly fell in love with the quiet, intentional pace of life among the mountains and wildlife. While working as a Spanish interpreter for local nonprofits, she began exploring a new path in education. This journey led her to pursue and earn a Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education through an online program.
Gladiz began her teaching career as a Kindergarten teacher in a Dual Immersion program at the local elementary school. After eight enriching years in Wyoming, she returned to California and settled in Lake Tahoe, continuing to teach in a Dual Immersion setting in Kings Beach.
In 2023, Gladiz and her husband, Dave, moved to Nevada City in search of a deeper connection to community and nature. Wanting to step away from the traditional classroom model, she sought out opportunities that aligned more closely with her core values; an outdoor, developmentally appropriate, and exploratory approach to learning, while continuing to honor her passion for bilingual and culturally responsive education. With roots in Michoacán, Mexico, Gladiz celebrates culture and language in everyday teaching.
Gladiz believes children thrive when they are given the freedom to explore, play, and connect with the natural world, and that learning is most meaningful when rooted in curiosity, culture, and relationship.
September
Geography/History Instructor
September is an educator, mother of three, veteran and military spouse. As a military family she embraces the unique opportunity to travel the world with her family. Through years of camping all over the country, she is raising her children to embrace nature’s curiosities with enthusiasm and reverence. Deepening her connection to the school community, her youngest will be joining Ohmapi this school year.
Originally from Chicago and raised in Tennessee, September joined the Air Force in 2000, serving in Italy and later settling with her family in places as far-reaching as Japan, Utah, Colorado, and Georgia. In 2019, she graduated with a MBA in healthcare management from the University of Maryland and pursued a teaching credential through the University of West Florida. Two years ago her family moved into their RV and made the journey from east to west and quickly the Sierra foothills felt like home.
Living in Colorado Springs brought the beautiful Rocky mountain range to her doorstep where she found solace and purpose in the outdoors. She volunteered her time as a Hike it Baby ambassador leading families on the trail throughout the Rockies. Her goal was to create equitable opportunities for young families to experience nature’s healing and unifying power.
Before joining Ohmapi, September taught in elementary and special education. Her experiences have allowed her to support children of all abilities and collaborate closely with some truly exceptional educators. She believes deeply in the power of patience, positive reinforcement, and authentic connection, both with each other and with the natural world. She takes great pride in getting to know each student’s personality and discovering what inspires their learning. She is equally committed to fostering strong communication with families, understanding that collaboration is essential for student success.
Jesse
Ceramics Teacher
Jesse was born in a rural area in Nevada county where he spent his time roaming the forest on his family's land. When he wasn't exploring the property with the dog,he was often engaged in drawing. Growing up, his mother always encouraged him to work with his hands in whatever he ended up doing in life. He fell in love with the culinary arts at a young age and worked in the field for the last 25 years. He enjoys working with the wonderful bounty of locally grown food. It was this career that introduced him to the ceramic arts. In 2019, a colleague invited him to cook at a pottery retreat in southern France. This introduction into ceramics has forever altered his life. The textile nature of the art form had him hooked from the beginning. Over time this has grown into so much more. Jesse got his first taste of wood fired pottery when he joined Dik Hotchkiss's group at Woolman, a former location of Ohmapi. There is a wood fired kiln there built by Dic and company in the 70's. This was the inspiration and spark of passion into building his own wood fire kiln. Currently Jesse is midway with building an Anagama Japanese wood fired kiln at his Penn Valley residence and successfully built a wood fired kiln at Ohmapi with some help from the students and friends. From building kilns to making glazes, throwing pots to firing the pieces, Jesse is excited every step of the way and enjoys sharing his knowledge and work with those who are interested.
Shan
Handwork Teacher
As the oldest of seven, Shan was blessed to grow up on a beautiful farm in Central Illinois, where nature and life skills were a part of daily life. Her parents were avid birders, gardeners, botanists and lovers of poetry, classical music and world-wide food culture. Picnics in the woods to see wildflowers, birds and collect mushrooms were a weekly experience in the spring and frequent during the rest of the year. Shan grew up sewing and knitting her own clothing and continues to love all of the fiber arts today.
After graduation from the University of Illinois with a degree in Microbiology, Shan moved to Cambridge, England with her husband and worked and taught in a small college biology laboratory. Later as a young mother, she began teaching in her children’s schools: first in a Montessori School and later in a Waldorf School as both KG assistant and Handwork teacher. She completed Waldorf teacher training at Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, CA in 1989 and taught as a class teacher in Grass Valley, Santa Cruz and Fair Oaks for 10 years.
After returning to the area in 2000, Shan went back to her farming roots and became a vineyard manager for four years, before returning to teaching Gardening and Handwork at Yuba River Charter School. In July of 2023, Shan completed a 4- year Applied Arts Handwork Teacher Training Program through the Fiber Craft Studio at the Threefold Educational Center in Spring Valley, NY. This training program helped solidify her work as Handwork Teacher for all ages: Children, adults and a teacher of future handwork teachers. Her other passions include herbology, homeopathy, nutrition, cooking and natural dyeing.
Kara
Art Teacher
Learning, growing, exploring, evolving, becoming and furthermore healing are only possible through imagination and creativity. The act of creation used to exist in every childhood where "all children are artists". Now these core developmental achievements are at risk of becoming a lost skill set forever. This sacred rite of passage, that of having lived in the imaginal realm, is threatened for our children as increasingly their world has been shrunken down to the size of a screen.
My hope is to guide children to learn "how to see like an artist" with their eyes, hands and hearts. To communicate directly with nature by attuning to the detail as well as the whole. To obtain the foundations of observation and the coordination of mind, body and spirit to draw and paint their perception of reality.
And most importantly, to keep the spark of imagination and creativity alive in human kind.
Relevant experience:
I studied Art and Environmental Science at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Worked in the rehabilitation of Birds of Prey at the Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network.
Obtained private instruction in traditional drawing and oil painting with master artist Nan Sheng Liu .
Received an Early childhood education credential from Sierra College.
Graduated Touro University as an MFT
Currently, working at Sierra Family Therapy center, as a therapist, where I work with children, adults, couples and families. And incorporate art and play therapy techniques, Brainspotting and client centered modalities.
SHANI
Intern
Shani Aliza Ponce Lizarraga joined a nature school at the age of eight and remained actively involved for seven years. Early on, she recognized a deep passion for nature and a desire to pursue it as a lifelong commitment.
At 13, Shani began volunteering at nature-based schools and has continued ever since, driven by a mission to share the values and healing benefits of nature with younger generations. She is especially passionate about fostering a love for the outdoors and environmental stewardship in children.
In addition to her work in nature education, Shani is a dedicated artist, often drawing inspiration from the natural world. Her creativity and connection to nature inform and enrich each other.
Shani’s long-term goal is to build her own business that brings together her love for nature and art, with the aim of strengthening the nature-based community and sharing her passion through creative expression.
Shelby & Holly
CANINE INSTRUCTORS AND THERAPISTS
Shelby and Holly share with our students their expertise and passion in hunting and chasing other animals, most notably, squirrels and pocket gophers. They are happy to teach others how to sniff the world and dig for ground dwelling animals. Shelby and Holly not only provide the children of The Ohmapi Nature Project hands-on learning of canine behavior they also offer endless hours of entertainment and cuddles.