Aliza Weller, MES

Co-Founder of a play-based learning institute

Website: http://www.intelligentplay.org/

Description

Aliza Weller is a global training Instructional Designer for a well-known tech company in Silicon Valley and Co-Founder of a play-based learning institute. Her central work is to help others develop courage, authenticity, and to aspire toward inner greatness and depth. She taught Zen meditation and yoga in maximum security men’s prisons. She created play-based urban programs that catalyzed policy change and galvanized 30,000 students to walk and bike to school to improve their health and that of the environment. She lived for three years in the high Canadian Arctic Circle, doing cross-cultural resource management work, where playfulness is a survival skill because winters have 24-hour darkness and -70 temperatures, and where she learned to play with the wind, kite boarding on the frozen ocean. With a background in Education, Communications, Biology, Law, and a Masters degree in Environmental Studies, Aliza advises on the Board of Directors of the North American Association for Environmental Education and the Canadian Network for Environmental Education and Communication. Her Arctic writing has been nominated for national literary awards.