Thriving Futures 2100 operates as a Networked Improvement Community (NIC) conducting Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR).
The NIC seeks participation from a diverse and inclusive group of educational and community stakeholders.
NIC representatives include:
-
Elder & Initiating teams
-
Regional facilitators
-
Teacher training university departments
-
University departments
-
Elementary, middle & high schools
-
Indigenous communities
-
Local and Global ecosocial organizations
NIC initiating team
Dr. David Krieger EdD
International Education
Project Director
_Image%20Enhancer_edited.jpg)
Dr. Serafina Appel
PhD Philosophy
Network Manager
Hwiemtun/Fred Roland
Cultural Ambassador & Elder
Program Advisor
Tashmyra Crowe MEd
Montessori teacher
Program Director
The Program Texts
Connect and Thrive, the community program text.
This book is the field guide for Global Care Packs. It introduces the River System of Human Time, the Seven Directions Compass, and the two linked learning paths, the Narrative Tracking Path and the Experiential Tracking Path. It shows how programs run in place through land routines, group agreements, and projects on the three Education Islands, Nature Connection and Earth Regeneration, Prosocial Connection and Community Regeneration, and Universal Connection and Human Regeneration. It is written for community teams, mentors, and schools that want a ready framework with practices, sequences, and shared language.
Thriving Futures 2100, the university course text.
This volume carries the same architecture in a course format for educators and stewards. It details how the Narrative and Experiential Tracking Paths fit together, how the Seven Directions Compass organizes preparation and reflection, and how to align lessons with research frames and assessment. It is used to train facilitators and to evaluate and improve programs across regions and years.
Together the two texts create one system.
The community book supports delivery in classrooms and field sites. The university text supports design, stewardship, and improvement. Both keep narrative and experience in step so that learning stays coherent from first steps to mastery
.png)
.png)
The Narrative Spine of the Programs
The River system
of Human Time
Why this narrative is used.
The programs address linked crises in climate, biodiversity, health, knowledge, and trust. The books frame these as knowledge system issues, not as isolated problems. The river narrative gives a shared way to see where current patterns came from and how to act with care and scale. It anchors the Narrative Tracking Path that runs beside the Experiential Tracking Path in every course.
What the story says.
The river begins at the Glacial Source, where humans developed shared capacities such as tracking, cooperation, and multigenerational memory. The flow then divides into two long cultural streams. One, the Disconnected Stream, centers expansion and control, and produces hierarchies and extraction that drive today’s risks. The other, the Regenerative Stream, centers relationship, reciprocity, and repair, and shows living examples of balance. These streams meet at the Anthropocene Delta, a crowded present where past choices converge and future choices open. In the Bay beyond the Delta stand the three Education Islands, where work is organized into Nature, Prosocial, and Universal learning and action.
The River System
of Human Time
1. The Glacial Source – common capacities and evolved abilities
2. The Divergent and Convergent Streams – knowledge systems and cultural streams
3. The Anthropocene Delta – experiencing and tracking the expanded present
4. The Confluence at the Bay – the 3 domains of knowledge, skills, experiences
5. The Nature Education Island – nature connection and Earth regeneration
6. The Prosocial Education Island – prosocial connection and community regeneration
7. The Universal Education Island – universal connection and human regeneration
How the narrative guides programs and the seven networked systems.
The books pair story with practice. Field routines like sit spot, tracking, soil and water projects, and mentoring circles are read through the river story so that direct experience connects to shared terms, decisions, and measures. This pairing lets sites align work streams in food, water, soils, culture, care, knowledge, and governance, and compare what works across places and years. The same narrative organizes youth courses, community programs, and steward preparation, so teams grow a common view and a common method.
navigating learning and action
What the compass offers.
The Seven Directions Compass is the shared map for planning, reflection, and action.
Three directions point to the three Education Islands. East, South, West, and North place work in time, attention, materials, and pattern view. The compass links the Narrative and Experiential Tracking Paths in one frame, so concepts and field routines reinforce each other in daily practice.
Lineage and teachings.
Directional learning in GCP grew with guidance from Indigenous teachers and mentors. Lakota Elder and Wilderness Awareness School mentor Gilbert Walking Bull shared the Seven Sacred Attributes of his lineage, which informed how GCP uses directional models as living, relational tools for education.
These teachings are honored as cultural and spiritual in their home contexts. In GCP they are used with care as a learning aid for reconnection, assessment, and practice.
.png)
.jpg)
7 Networked Solutions for Regeneration Convergence
Networked solutions explain how big problems yield to coordinated coalitions that share goals, data, funding, and trusted local leadership.
Thriving Futures 2100 puts this into practice by drawing on effective partner organizations and translating their proven methods into the three learning domains of the Global Care Packs programs. The programs' course books weave these networked solutions into the conceptual narrative of the 'River System of Human Time'.
These networked solutions become the seven currents of the Regeneration Convergence living-lab events where conceptual and experiential learning connects with real projects. Communities gain tools that already work, and students practice skills that scale from local action to wider systems change.
Deep Nature Connection [Coyote’s Guide to Nature Connection]:
Jon Young’s Coyote’s Guide offers a practical path to rebuild sensory awareness, curiosity, and mentoring culture. It uses sit spots, tracking, storytelling, and gentle “coyote” questions to grow observation skills, confidence, and care for place. In the 7 networked solution currents, this stream builds personal attention, group learning habits, and a living bond with land that supports every other solution.
Prosocial World:
Prosocial World translates Elinor Ostrom’s core design principles and evolutionary science into team tools. Groups learn to set clear purpose, fair rules, shared monitoring, graduated responses to problems, and conflict resolution. The result is stronger trust and faster cooperation across diverse partners. In the network, Prosocial gives each project a governance toolkit that scales from small teams to coalitions.
Moral Courage Project:
Irshad Manji’s Moral Courage Project trains people to speak truth with humility, to listen across difference, and to turn disagreement into learning. The method builds identity safety, uses values based questions, and teaches skills for calm, clear dialogue. In the network, this stream reduces polarization, protects relationships, and keeps teams focused on shared goals.
Center for Partnership Systems:
Riane Eisler’s Center for Partnership Systems is a nonprofit hub for research, education, and action that advances “partnership” over domination in our families, communities, economies, and governments. The Center’s mission is to catalyze a shift to partnership systems through research, online courses, grassroots empowerment, and policy work, with a strong focus on human rights, nonviolence, gender and racial equity, child development, and valuing the work of care.
Two Eyed Seeing:
Two Eyed Seeing is a guiding principle that invites people to use the strengths of Indigenous knowledges together with the strengths of Western science. It asks groups to hold both ways of knowing in respectful balance, then design from that wider view. In the network, this stream keeps projects grounded in relationship with land and community while still using rigorous measurement and analysis.
Conservation International:
Conservation International partners with communities, governments, and businesses to protect nature for climate, biodiversity, and human well being. They support protected areas, sustainable economies, blue carbon, and science based planning. In the network, this stream brings large scale impact pathways, finance partners, and proven field programs that connect local action to global outcomes.
Doughnut Economics:
Doughnut Economics frames a safe and just space for humanity, inside social foundations and within planetary boundaries. The Doughnut Economics Action Lab helps cities, regions, and organizations turn this model into design choices, procurement rules, and scorecards. In the network, this stream aligns projects with fair livelihoods and ecological limits, then tracks progress in clear, practical terms.