Rachael Paulson has always viewed life through a unique lens, stopping to help the ant cross the road or shining light on the outcast child in class. This teacher-turned-grassroots-activist uses this skill to help educate children about the environment.

Group leader of Global Kids HOPE R&S group in Sparta, New Jersey, Rachael joined Roots & Shoots about ten years ago after participating in a book signing with Dr. Jane. She's carried on the Roots & Shoots mission by becoming an author of environmental education books for children.

Rachael has made a career out of leading children to new discoveries about their environment. Her career as a teacher began in a special education classroom where she had the freedom to educate her students the way they learned best¿in nature. She discovered that she could transform her most challenging students by using the outdoors as a tool to engage all their senses and, most importantly, their minds.

"I took children to places that no one expected," Rachael said. "With special [education], I was allowed to use the environment to enhance the [senses] for those who could not see and hear and for those children who had behavior problems¿. I took them outside and magic would happen."

The concept for her first environmental children's book was born when Rachael's two-year-old daughter asked her about the stack of newspapers in the garage. Rachael realized how difficult it was to explain the concept of recycling to such a young person. That's when she got the idea to write a story for her children about a boy named Johnny and an old oak tree that offered lessons about the land.

Johnny & The Old Oak Tree was initially intended for Rachael's own children; however, she wound up publishing the book in 1995. Ten thousand copies were printed, and Rachael's life was changed forever.

A few years later she published Sir Johnny's Recycling Adventure, a story about a courageous knight fighting the trash-breathing dragons of the landfills. She began holding workshops with educators and giving presentations to students to show them how we affect the environment. She once used a blender to show how recycling works!

Rachael has taken her passion for children and nature global, working in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa with the Water is Life program to research water issues in rural communities. In 2000, she established a teen internship program called Youth Action Group, through which teens join her in doing community work both locally and abroad.

As for her Roots & Shoots group, Rachael hopes to either paint a dove mural on the wall of a school or fly a Giant Peace Dove in Africa this summer when she installs her next water pump. She's also starting a non-profit organization called Hands on the World Global.

"My goal is to bring positive public awareness to the areas where I am developing community relationships, whether it be in South Africa; Pineville, Kentucky; New Orleans or right where I live in New Jersey."

When it comes to helping others, Rachael stresses the importance of education and personal responsibility.

"We need to teach self-sufficiency and not do things so that we feel credit for ourselves," she writes. "I try and teach my teens this lesson of 'who are you doing this for?'"


Interested in sharing Rachael's books with the young people in your life? Learn more at Crestmont Publishing.