Cohort 8
Nick Seme
EDUCATION • M.S. in General and Special Elementary Education Mercy College • B.A. in Natural Science, Biology Saint John’s University
ENROLLED • Cohort 8
LOCATION • Minneapolis, Minn.
Nick Seme grew up in Northern Minnesota, not far from the shores of Lake Superior. Much of his childhood was spent outside exploring the woods behind his childhood home, building forts, camping, hiking and developing an appreciation and connection to nature that is at the core of who Nick is as a person. Nick went on to study Natural Science at Saint John’s University. After completing his undergraduate studies, Nick began his career in education by volunteering for an Americorps program at an elementary school in Fair Oaks, Calif. Following his year volunteering, Nick enrolled in the New York City Teaching Fellows program where he earned his master’s degree in education while teaching in both The Bronx and Brooklyn public schools. After his time in New York, Nick moved back to Minnesota where he has been teaching fourth grade at an independent school in the Twin Cities for the past 17 years. Nick believes that all humans have a right to enjoy the wild spaces of our planet and a responsibility to protect them for future generations. The core of Nick’s work in the classroom is to help students feel connected to their communities, develop their sense of agency, and empower them to think critically and creatively about the interconnected world in which we live. Nick does this by getting kids outside the traditional walls of the classroom and co-creates project-based learning experiences with his students to help them see and feel the impacts of their actions within their broader communities. As Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in Braiding Sweetgrass, “Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.” Nick is hopeful and confident that his work towards an Ed.D. in Educational Sustainability will be reciprocal as well, and that this journey will help him grow both personally and professionally.
UW-Stevens Point
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