"If we concern ourselves firstly with education – not that of the teaching of facts, but of discovering the wisdom of how to live – then surely there is nothing we cannot achieve." ~ Headwaters Wilderness Program
Philo-sophia – Love of Wisdom
In our journey toward the development of an environmentally moral education, we ground our work in three pillars: Development, Practice (Implementation), and Dissemination being the foundation of everything we do (to read more about this model, click here).
The dissemination of our research and findings takes many forms, including: presenting at conferences, symposiums, and events; publications in journals, books, and websites; ongoing research projects; and professional development partnerships.
Poke around this page for a glimpse into our activities, findings, and publications.
Presentations & Workshops
Engaging in Discourse | Sharing Our Findings
Headwaters regularly takes part in – and presents at – conferences, symposiums, events, and gatherings of professionals in our field. Sharing our ideas and engaging in thoughtful discussion with others is paramount to our Socratic model of community-oriented action research.
2024 Make Peace with Winter Conference
Hosted by: The Council of Outdoor Educators of Ontario (COEO)
Winter Media for Communities of Educational Care: Transportation and Shelter in Time and Space
Before you even formulate the content or curriculum of your lesson, how does the pencil the students will use impact the values being taught? What about cross-country skis, winter clothing, and outdoor shelters? In this workshop, by critically examining how the media (a broad term encompassing communications devices and methods, transportation modes and means, physical objects, and organizational structures) of educational settings shape our relations to space and time, we will uncover the overlooked importance of media on the values and lessons disseminated via education. With a particular emphasis on winter, we will learn how modes of transportation (such as cross-country skis) and aspects of shelter (such as clothing and wall tents) play a fundamental role in building communities of care and warmth between humans and nonhumans. No technologies are neutral and, as such, being intentional about one’s media is the first step in building resilient and caring educational communities.
2024 Annual Fall Conference
Hosted by: The Council of Outdoor Educators of Ontario (COEO)
After the Canoe Trip Ends: Using Shared Moral Language to Bring the Values of the Wilderness Home with Us
Outdoor and environmental education programs pretty much all share a common feature: they are time-limited; they end, often just as the most transformative part of the experience has begun to set in. As such, an overlooked yet essential component to any program seeking to make education wild – seeking to teach the values of the wilderness – is the question of how to bring those teachings home. While canoeing on a remote lake or sleeping under the stars, the inherent teachings appear obvious. But how do we maintain those teachings while back home, sitting in traffic on the 401 or standing in line at the coffee shop? Through group activities and discussions, we will wade in these murky waters, discovering how the use of a shared moral language (established at the outset of our programs) enables us to bring home – to the cities and our domesticated places – the teachings of the wilderness, nature, and the nonhuman.
2025 Kingston Climate Change Symposium – Rooted in Action: Empowering Youth to Grow a Sustainable Future
Hosted by: Sustainable Kingston
Environmentally Moral Education
Headwaters presented a booth at the Kingston Climate Change Symposium – a youth-focused event attend by school groups and educators from Kingston and the surrounding area. Throughout the day, we engaged in numerous and wide-ranging discussions with symposium participants on the need to establish an environmentally moral education and ways in which Headwaters is working to develop, practice, and disseminate education as such.
2025 Make Peace with Winter Conference
Hosted by: The Council of Outdoor Educators of Ontario (COEO)
If We Are to Succeed: The Need for an Undeniable Case in Favour of Outdoor Education
Outdoor education, when done well, is the best form of good teaching. However, outdoor education is, as we all know, under funded, under respected, and constantly under threat. If we’re being truthful, this is largely because most people think of canoe trip leaders as “not a real job,” and consider any type of nature-based field trip to be “extra-curricular.” While few would question the benefits of time spent in nature, many would question what, exactly, we mean when we say that our students are “learning with nature as co-teacher.” What does that mean beyond spooky sounding claims that can never be verified? If we believe in this work – if we believe in the transformative and necessary role of outdoor education for both well-lived human lives and for the flourishing of wild creatures and places on this planet – then it is time for outdoor educators to present a sophisticated, robust, intelligent theory: an explanation as to what it is that we do “out there” with our students. It is time, in other words, to stop playing continual defence and to mount an undeniable argument in favour of the case for outdoor education. For all those interested in educational change for a better world, join this workshop and be part of the discussion. While it may not be a technique you can take home and use with your students on Monday, this is important, long-term work. And if these discussions are not had at COEO conferences, then where will they be had?
Guest Lecture, Queen's University Economics Department, Winter 2025
Hosted by: Queen's University
Subjecting Human Decisions to Nature's Value: Towards a Holistically Non-Anthropocentric Economics
Invited by a Queen's University economics professor, Brock presented a guest lecture in March of 2025. An audience of undergraduate and graduate students was in attendance to hear about ideas on the cutting edge of the field of economics. Focused on solving the problem of modern economic theory being unable to account for the inherent and intrinsic moral value of non-human beings, Brock's talk drew from his past research work while also pointing towards future initiatives in this field. In particular, the lecture ended by highlighting the field philosophy work the Headwaters Institute is undertaking in the summer of 2025 with regard to the old growth forests of the Temagami region of Ontario; a project which will include, among other aspects, an examination of how, exactly, nature's value may be determined in a local, place- and care-based way such that economic models may account for it.
Publications
Written Work | Research and Observations
Aiming to be at the forefront of environmental philosophy and education, the Headwaters community produces written work for a wide variety of outlets. Some of it is published internally, by the Headwaters Institute, while much else is published in external sources. From academic journals, to books, to nature blogs, the Headwaters community is active in the fields of knowledge sharing and production.
To read stories from the trail and noticings of nature, head on over to our blog: The Campfire.
‘Extending David Hume’s Analogical Argument for Nonhuman Animal Minds to Plants’. Noēsis: Undergraduate Journal of Philosophy, vol. 22, no. 1, 2021, pp. 25–34.
‘Plight and Possibility: In Dialogue With Change’. Pathways: The Ontario Journal of Outdoor Education, vol. 36, no. 1, 2023, pp. 24–26.
Seize the Means of Education: A Theory of Media Virtues. Master's Thesis in Environmental Studies & Education, 2023, forthcoming as a book.
Subjecting Human Decisions to Nature's Value: Towards a Wholistically Non-Anthropocentric Economics. Master's Thesis in Economics, 2024.
'Seize the Means of Education: Implementing Harmonious Transportation for a Wild Pedagogy'. Pathways: The Ontario Journal of Outdoor Education, vol. 37, no. 1, 2024, pp. 18–21.
Research Projects
Field Philosophy | Action Research
Headwaters is a research-based organization with a unique take on what research is and how we conduct it. We view research as an engagement in field philosophy, re-situating philosophy as in the world. It is Henry David Thoreau who said "[t]here are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live." Lamenting the reduction of philosophy to those professing it from within the safe confines of the classroom, while abandoning it as a way of living and relating on Earth.
The philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore has said that the "work of philosophy is like the work of ospreys." Beginning by soaring high above and getting a broad view, they "catch a glimpse of a shadow below the surface," compelling them – philosopher and osprey both – to dive-in, grab on tight, and engage directly with the world, wrangling to the surface a catch worth sharing.
From the insights of Thoreau and Moore, we develop our approach: insisting, above all else, that meaningful research constitutes an engagement with the world aimed beyond the writing of words. That good research – good philosophy – is as much lived as it is thought, and that this living is always striving, aiming despite potential failure toward a world of flourishing for human and non-human beings alike.
Summer 2025
Developing the Case for Old Growth Forests
The Headwaters Institute is working on the development of a new philosophical and economic argument in favour of preserving old growth forests. Specifically, we aim to show that when you account for the intrinsic value of non-human beings, it can be economically optimal to not do such activities as old-growth logging. That is, it can be shown that, on top of the usual ethical appeals that may be made in favour of protecting the forests, economic arguments can be given for the same conclusion. With the red and white pine old growth forests of the Temagami region of Ontario as our case study, we aim to utilize our newly developed model of economic analysis, coupled with an environmental virtue ethics framework, to conclusively argue for the protection of old growth forests by demonstrating that it is economically optimal to not log the forest, even when profits and business interests are taken dully into account. This ground-breaking research project involves combining data regarding the Temagami forest with a field philosophy investigation. Our aim is to produce another arrow for the preservationist's quiver, mixing philosophical and economic academic work with on-the-ground research via material activism and youth-involved canoe trips. We intend to take this field philosophy project to it's conclusion, arguing before the Government of Ontario for the complete and permanent protection of our province's old growth forests.
"[The program adopted] ought to be radical… because it is easy to convert a natural area to industrial or motor usage, impossible to do the reverse"
~ Robert Marshall, The Problem of the Wilderness, 1930