Board and Steering Committee

Sunday Harrison is currently serving as Board Chair of the revitalized EEON. She is the founder and Executive Director of Green Thumbs Growing Kids, a food literacy and environmental/outdoor education opportunity for elementary students, primarily held on their respective school grounds. She was on the EEON board in 2019 and was one of the former directors asked to revitalize the group with a new board cohort. Sunday also participates on the boards of Sustain Ontario and Karma Co-op. Her passions include growing trees from seed, learning and teaching about soil life and participating in social justice movements. She is currently teaching Food Justice in the Community Worker Program at George Brown College. 

Tim Grant was a founding member of EEON and currently serves as board secretary.  A former high school teacher, he co-edited Green Teacher magazine for 25 years and now serves as the publisher. For 17 years, he served as Vice-Chair of EECOM, the Canadian Network for Environmental Education and Communication.  Outside of the education system, he served as chair of the Harbord Village Residents Association for 7 years and currently chairs the Association’s NetZero Initiative, which is helping residents of 43 Toronto communities decarbonize their homes.  

A member of the Steering Committee of Charter City Toronto, he is a strong advocate for cities gaining greater decision-making powers and a bigger share of the taxes collected by all levels of government.  Lastly, he was a Green Party candidate in five elections in his downtown Toronto riding. 

John Baumann is treasurer on the board of EEON. He has been an elementary teacher and environmental educator in the Toronto area for 27 years. He has worked with educational non-profit Scientists in School to develop and present a full-day Climate Change workshop to grade 7 and 8 classes, and has served as a volunteer on the boards of Fair Vote Canada and Fair Vote Toronto, as well as on the board of the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT). 

John owes much of his love of nature to experiences his father shared with him when he was a child. He believes that childhood is the best time for this kind of deep learning, and that educators and schools can be leaders in shifting our culture towards ways of living that are sustainable and responsible, and which flatten the climate curve.

Andrea Stephens is a climate advocate, a parent and an engaged citizen. She studied graphic design & advertising at Ontario College of Art & Design and worked for over twenty years in the fashion industry, focused on buying, marketing & management. Growing up with a strong connection to the environment, she ignited this love of nature in her kids and saw the potential in nurturing this connection throughout the greater community. Andrea has spent over a decade on elementary through secondary school Parent Councils, leveraging her business skills to support green initiatives and teachers working to educate and engage their peers and students in climate action. As well as being a member of EEON’s board, she worked with David Suzuki Foundation's Blue Dot Campaign, has served on the TDSB Environmental Sustainability Community Advisory Committee for four years, is a member of the Steering Committee of For Our Kids Toronto, and is a key member of Drawdown Toronto, spearheading several programs.

Originally from Australia, Anne Keary received her Ph.D. in history from University of California Berkeley and taught the history of colonial-Indigenous relations at the University of Utah for several years before moving to Toronto with her family.  Motivated by an awareness of the growing climate crisis and its impacts, she now divides her time between research and writing and advocacy work.  A strong believer in the power and potential of education, she is proud to serve on the EEON Board where she is committed to advancing climate justice education in ways that uphold the perspectives of people from Indigenous, Black and racialized communities.  In addition, she serves on the Steering Committee of Toronto Climate Action Network, is an active member of For Our Kids Toronto, and currently serves as Community Co-Chair of the Toronto District School Board’s Environmental Sustainability Community Advisory Committee. 

Brianne Whyte is an elementary teacher in the York Region District School Board where she has had the fantastic privilege of teaching music for over a decade. She is also the team lead of For Our Kids Toronto - a group of parents and allies working together toward climate justice through advocacy, community organizing, and outreach.

After leading school eco-teams and working with For Our Kids with a focus on school climate action, Brianne joined the EEON steering committee to bring together her work in school and community climate action.

Brianne is a mom to an energetic toddler, who is her reason for working toward a more sustainable and safe climate.

Elise Houghton is a decades-long advocate for increasing the quality, scope and - importantly - the official status and accountability of environmental, sustainability and climate change education.  She has a background in advertising, grassroots campaigning, environmental writing, and a degree in Environmental Studies focused on mainstreaming
environmental education.

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Elise was instrumental in the first years of EEON, spearheading the production of Greening the Way Ontario Learns, and following that up with years of managing the EEON e-list, a vibrant interactive email list in use up until recently.

Michele Martin has over 35 years experience as an environmental and sustainability educator in Canada and in the Seychelles Islands, with the last ten years focused more specifically on climate change education and capacity building.  She has worked with a wide diversity of stakeholder groups including teachers, youth, schools, colleges and universities, the media, farmers, fishers, hoteliers, and the construction industry. Michele holds a PhD in Environmental Studies from York University and is working as a freelance consultant in climate change education and capacity building, from her base in Waterloo, Ontario. Her clients include Learning for a Sustainable Future, the Toronto District School Board, the Project Learning Tree Canada, Sustainability for Seychelles, the Commonwealth Parliamentarians Association, and the World Bank. She is also an occasional contract faculty member for Wilfrid Laurier University, York University and Conestoga College. In addition to her consulting work Michele volunteers for EEON, Climate Action Waterloo Region, and the Grand Valley Trails Association. 

Melanie Williams previously served as Board Chair for the revitalized EEON (2021-22). She has worked for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board for the past 15 years teaching secondary students English, history, social science, and sometimes French. Her belief in the importance of interdisciplinary project-based learning is evident in her work for Women4Climate Toronto's inaugural cohort, integrating climate action into existing classwork in a variety of different high-school subjects, as well as her workshop (developed with colleagues from math and science departments) addressing gender disparity in STEM disciplines and fields, delivered at the 6th International STEM in Education Conference. She is completing a Master's program in Interdisciplinary Studies at York University and has been published in the social studies journal, The Councilor (2021), and in the critical literary anthology, Blowing Up the Skirt of History (2021).