Helping Kids Find Wonder in the Natural World
Rayanna Santiago Inspires the Best in People
“Winter camping is one of my favourite things,” says Master of Education student Rayanna Santiago.
“My family asks me, ‘How is that fun?’ but winter camping lets you connect with the land and slow down at a time when many animals are slowing down, too.”
Lakehead Leader Awards are given to students who embody the spirit of excellence, innovation, dedication, and community impact. “I was really honoured and grateful to be nominated for an award,” Rayanna says. “To this day, I don’t know who nominated me.”
Rayanna, who specializes in Environmental and Sustainability Education, is finishing her first year of the Education for Change program.
“Lakehead has empowered me to pursue my passions for social justice and fighting climate change,” she says.
“I’m interested in intersectional ecofeminist values and practices as a way to implement ecologically and socially just ways of relating with each other to help all beings flourish.”
This April, Rayanna received a Lakehead Leader Luminary Award from the Student Success Centre for her efforts to foster environmental sustainability.
“It was exciting to receive the award because it allowed me to recognize that I’m doing meaningful work and it gave me a moment for self-reflection.”
Wilderness Adventures on Your Doorstep
Rayanna is a place-based educator—she helps children learn by engaging them in the social, ecological, economic, and cultural contexts of the places where they live.
“The local context of the place we live in becomes the foundation of learning,” Rayanna explains. “This could include visiting important cultural sites or getting kids into natural settings to learn from, and with, nature.”
As part of her commitment to this interactive style of learning, she’s volunteered at local forest schools in the Thunder Bay area.
Above, Rayanna takes elementary school students on a winter walk. “There’s a lot of focus on human-to-human connection in education, but not enough on the human-to-nature connection,” she says.
Her experiences at both the Tapiola Outdoor Education Centre and the Kingfisher Outdoor Education Centre, run by the Lakehead District School Board, have been immensely rewarding.
“There’s so much fantastic outdoor education, environmental education, and Indigenous land-based learning happening in northwestern Ontario,” she says.
Bringing her fellow outdoor educators together is equally important to Rayanna.
As a director-at-large with the Council of Outdoor Educators of Ontario (COEO), her goal is to help build a strong community of northwestern outdoor educators, organizations, and universities and to help these educators build relationships with each other.
“I also use this role to strengthen the ties between outdoor education and environmental sustainability, such as my work co-chairing COEO’s Make Peace with Winter Conference.”
Make Peace with Winter brought Ontario educators together to share creative approaches to connecting their students with the outdoors in wintertime.
“I was glad that I was able to secure a travel grant to bring five Lakehead students and staff to this conference at Camp Kawartha,” she adds.
Above, Rayanna engages Lakehead outdoor recreation students in an activity illustrating how different parts of the natural world are connected.
Embracing the More-than-Human World
At the heart of Rayanna’s teaching is the concept of community.
"For me, this means people, the place that we live, and the more-than-human beings. The oak tree on my front lawn is as much my community member as my next-door neighbour.
My aim is to foster relationships with the more-than-human world so that we can make ethical decisions and do the best we can for other beings, as well as ourselves.
That’s why I have my students spend a lot of time in nature. It sparks their curiosity by encouraging them to think about who we share this environment with—whether it's rocks and birds or lakes and fish.”
Above, Rayanna on a 2022 camping trip to Temagami, Ontario. “After I graduate from Lakehead, I’d like to work at least a year at the Kingfisher Centre and as a contract university lecturer in critical education topics,” she says.
Tracking animal footprints in the snow is always popular with her students.
“I ask them, ‘Who do you think was here and what were they doing?’
When you're tracking you’re never going to know all the answers, but it evokes a feeling of kinship with our fellow animals.”
An even simpler year-round activity Rayanna’s students enjoy is sitting by themselves in the forest for 5-10 minutes and observing their surroundings.
“It cultivates their sense of awe and stimulates their creativity,” she says. “Often, kids will tell me, ‘That was so magical!’”
“Education is a powerful way to change how people relate to the world.”
Dr. Langis Roy, Vice-President, Research and Innovation is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Ide Costa as the new Director of Lakehead’s Centre for Education and Research on Aging & Health (CERAH), effective July 1, 2026. 
Assistant Professor Tobias Stephan was awarded the 2026 Elliot Best Paper Award by the Canadian Tectonics Group (CTG), a division of the Geological Association of Canada (GAC). The Elliot Best Paper Award recognizes an exceptional publication in the fields of tectonics and/or structural geology authored by a researcher at a Canadian institution or focused on a Canadian field area.
Dr. Andrew Conly, associate professor and chair of the Department of Geology, received the 2026 Leonard G. Berry Medal by the Mineralogical Association of Canada (MAC). Presented annually, the Leonard G. Berry Medal recognizes distinguished service to the association through leadership, long-term service in elected or appointed roles, and significant contributions that advance the mineral sciences in Canada or broaden the Canadian mineralogical perspective.
