Award-winning environmental educator Jade Berrill has received a Telus STORYHIVE Project Grant to produce a new video podcast, How to be an Outsider.
The grant gives non-professional content creators across B.C. and Alberta a platform to share meaningful stories from their communities. Hosted by Berrill, the series is set to launch in Spring 2026 and will share diverse stories exploring the connection between belonging and the outdoors.
“I’ll explore how a person has moved from being an outsider to feeling a sense of belonging in relationship to the outdoors, in whatever way that means to them in our community,” she said.
Hailing from the U.K., she has been inspired by her position as an “outsider” in Revelstoke.
“How is it that someone like me, who has lived here for just seven to eight years, can feel more of a sense of belonging than, for example, people whose traditional land this has been for thousands of years?” Berrill said.
It is this question of belonging that sits at the heart of her project, which aims to use storytelling to uplift historically decentered voices. Berrill is currently interviewing eight Revelstoke community members whose voices have been previously underrepresented – including new immigrants, primary resource industry workers, people in the LGBTQIA+ community, people of colour and individuals living with disabilities.
The series will explore how the outdoors has given these individuals a sense of belonging over time and holds space, without judgment, for anyone who enters it.
The outdoors, education and decolonization
A connection to the outdoors has long been a key aspect of Berrill’s work. With a background in science and science communication, it was her move to Revelstoke that sparked a transition to outdoor education.
She began running after-school programs, science workshops and one-off courses in the school system before stepping into the role of community educator for the Columbia Basin Environmental Education Network’s (CBEEN) Wild Voices Program. There, she delivered environmental education related to the curriculum in Revelstoke schools and grew passionate about how inquiry, or place-based learning, positively impacts children’s education and wellbeing.
“It reflects the traditional Indigenous ways of being,” she explained. “What we know is outdoor learning improves kids’ connection to the place around them, with a hands-on approach that really embeds learning.”
Today Berrill operates Stoked on Science Education Services offering quality educational and recreation programming for youth, a business she co-founded alongside her husband. Additionally as the director of learning at the Outdoor Learning School and Store, a charitable nonprofit she co-leads, she achieves this mission on a different scale by delivering professional learning and developing resources to help educators take learning outdoors across Canada and the US.
“I’m very passionate about spreading the word and changing the learning culture so it becomes internalized,” she said.
Her decolonizing approach to education directly informs her latest creative endeavour, and through her work in outdoor education and engagement with Indigenous groups on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Calls to Action, Berrill has come to recognize how marginalized voices are often excluded from discourse.
“There are certain ways of knowing and being that have often been suppressed or attempted to be deleted,” she explained.
Understanding the stories that are told and the stories that are not, has laid the foundation for How to Be an Outsider. The project weaves together her experience in education, communication and the outdoors into meaningful storytelling in the community she loves.
A community project
It’s living in Revelstoke and seeing how individuals interact with the environment here specifically, that has shaped this project for Berrill. She referred to conversations with local primary resource industry workers, where she heard phenomenal stories about how the landscape has changed over time, and their deep love and respect for the forest.
“It showcased to me that care, appreciation and livelihood can exist in really different ways within one space.”
The video podcast format allows these stories to be captured in the very environments and spaces individuals feel this sense of belonging. While no stranger to podcasting, currently co-hosting the audio podcast Earthy Chats with environmental educator and editor Ian Shanahan, the transition to video format has been a new experience for Berrill.
Luckily, as a self-proclaimed ever-learner, she has welcomed the challenge. Berrill has undergone broadcasting training through STORYHIVE and has received strong community support for the project.
“I’ve been very lucky,” she said. “The Revelstoke Library is providing us with equipment, Stoke FM is providing microphones and the current executive director, and my best bud, is my videographer and editor.”
With her submission deadline coming up in January 2026, Berrill is excited for a busy end of the year as she wraps up filming.
“Filming and talking to all these different folks, I am constantly being reminded of the joy of complexity and the joy of difference,” she said. “The stories in this town are just exceptional.”
How to be an Outsider is set to be released on Telus Optik TV in Spring 2026.
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