Thriving Futures 2100
Education Foundations for Thriving Futures
Thriving Futures 2100 is a global education initiative developing the knowledge, relationships and human capacities needed to contribute to Regeneration Transitions.
Its guiding wisdom goal is to maintain, renew and strengthen the conditions that enable life to thrive across generations.
The project brings together educators, researchers, schools, and community organizations.
A Networked Improvement Community
The initiative is developing a Networked Improvement Community through which educators, researchers, schools, universities, Indigenous knowledge holders and community organisations can contribute to the continuing development, evaluation and improvement of its educational programmes.
At the center are the Global Care Packs programs, which use a combination of narrative learning, experiential practice, and cooperative community engagement to cultivate the knowledge and skills needed for a regenerative future.
NIC Initiating Team
Dr. David Krieger EdD
International Education
Project Director
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Dr. Serafina Appel
PhD Philosophy
Network Manager
Hwiemtun/Fred Roland
Cultural Ambassador & Elder
Program Advisor
Tashmyra Crowe MEd
Montessori teacher
Program Director
What Makes Thriving Futures 2100 Unique
Thriving Futures 2100 brings together education, research, and community practice in a single learning system. Rather than treating environmental, social, and economic challenges as separate issues, the project approaches them as interconnected questions about how human societies organize knowledge, cooperation, and stewardship.
A Shared Narrative Framework
All programs are guided by the River System of Human Time. This narrative provides a common way for learners to understand the historical pathways that have shaped human societies and the choices communities face today.
Experiential and Narrative Learning
Each programme combines two learning paths. The Narrative Path draws on research, history, stories and accumulated knowledge. The Experiential Path develops through observation, practical activity and reflection. Together, they connect direct experience with knowledge gained from others.
A Networked Improvement Community
The project operates through collaboration among schools, universities, Indigenous partners, and community organizations. Programs are continually tested, evaluated, and improved through shared research and practical experimentation across regions.
Learning Across the Lifespan
The Global Care Packs system connects youth programs, community learning, and advanced stewardship training. Participants can enter at different stages of life and continue developing skills, knowledge, and responsibility over time.
Connect and Thrive
Community Program Text
This book functions as a field guide for community teams, mentors, teachers, and universities.
It introduces the River System of Human Time, the Seven Directions Compass, and the two linked learning paths: Narrative Tracking and the Experiential Tracking
The book shows how programs run through land routines, group agreements, and projects organized around three domains of learning:
Nature Connection - Earth Regeneration
Prosocial Connection - Community Regeneration
Universal Connection - Human Regeneration
The Program Text
The River System of Human Time
The Narrative Spine of the Programs
All Global Care Packs learning programs follow a shared narrative framework called The River System of Human Time.
The river story traces how human societies developed core capacities such as cooperation, tracking, and multigenerational memory.
From this shared human source, the River follows two broad cultural streams that have developed, diverged and repeatedly interacted across human history.
The Continuous Expansion Stream traces the development of expanding populations, production, economic systems, institutions and technological capacities. These developments have enlarged human possibilities while contributing to ecological pressures and forms of social disconnection.
The Regenerative Stream follows knowledge, relationships and practices concerned with maintaining and renewing the conditions that support life across generations. Its currents can be found in different societies, traditions and contemporary initiatives.
Both streams have contributed to the world we inhabit, and their influences are present within contemporary societies and institutions. At the Anthropocene Delta, humanity faces the challenge of learning from these histories while developing the capacities, relationships and forms of cooperation needed for Regeneration Transitions.
The Seven Thresholds of Disconnection help learners investigate how relationships with the natural world, other people, knowledge, contribution and responsibility have changed as human societies developed. They provide a framework for examining the conditions that make cooperation and regenerative choices more difficult, and for exploring how these relationships can be strengthened through Reconnection.
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
The Seven Directions Compass
The Seven Directions Compass brings together East, South, West, North, Earth, Self and Sky as a framework for learning, reflection and investigation across the Global Care Packs programmes.
The four cardinal directions connect practical navigation and tracking with the River System of Human Time, allowing learners to investigate relationships across place and time. Earth directs attention towards the living systems and material conditions that support life. Sky extends attention towards the wider universe and the relationships through which humanity understands its place within it. Self, at the centre, locates the learner within relationships with other people and communities.
The Compass connects the Narrative and Experiential Learning Paths, allowing learners to move between direct observation and practice, accumulated knowledge, stories, research and reflection.
Indigeneous Roots
Directional learning in the program draws inspiration from Indigenous teachings shared by mentors including Lakota Elder Gilbert Walking Bull and educators from the Wilderness Awareness School.
These teachings are respected as cultural and spiritual traditions. Within Global Care Packs they are used carefully as relational learning tools.
Festival 2100
Where the learning comes together
Festival 2100 is a travelling, week-long learning festival that takes place in locations around the world. It brings together participants from the Thriving Futures programs with schools, communities and the wider public for shared learning, experiences, projects and events.
Each festival grows from its place. Participants bring together what they have explored through the Narrative and Experiential Learning Paths, working with local people, environments and knowledge to help create a week of public events, shared experiences and learning that is locally grounded and globally connected.
The Free Online Introduction Course
Discover the ideas, people, and learning pathways behind Thriving Futures 2100 and Global Care Packs through a short introduction that combines storytelling, practical awareness skills, and a simple experiential activity.
Meet the initiating team, explore the foundations of the narrative and experiential learning paths, and take your first steps into a learning journey focused on thriving and regenerative futures.