Zenobia Barlow, Pioneer in Schooling for Sustainability

by Alexa Norstad, Executive Director, Center for Ecoliteracy

Zenobia Barlow was a guiding force whose wisdom, passion, and systems view of life shaped every aspect of our work at the Center for Ecoliteracy. She believed deeply that the world needs leaders and citizens who can think ecologically and who understand that we are not separate from the natural world, but members of it. She believed, fiercely, that we must prepare young people with the values, skills, and courage to live that truth.

She used to say that everything we did was for the “darling children.” She would say it so often that it became something of a joke inside the organization — but it never stopped being true.

Her commitment to children was rooted in a profound empathy for life itself. Zenobia could see the humanity in every individual she encountered, no matter who they were. 

Zenobia taught me that sustainability is not a technical problem to be solved, but a relationship to be tended. She understood that nothing thrives in isolation — not organisms, not communities, not organizations. The quality of our relationships determines our capacity to survive and flourish. And the way she cultivated relationships was with care, intention, and beauty. To her, everything was connected. And therefore, it all mattered.

Beauty really mattered to Zenobia. Whether it was the displays of oranges with their leaves still attached, reminding us that food is a part of the natural world, or the white table cloths at every professional development workshop honoring the nobility of the work, beauty was a language that she believed could open people to new ways of seeing the world. She knew that beauty could invite awe and disarm cynicism. And remind us of what we were protecting. What we were for, not against. 

She was discerning, elegant, whip smart, and often devilish in the best way. She was a force without being forceful. Uncompromising about what mattered, yet genuinely open to new perspectives. She listened deeply. And let herself be shaped by what she learned. 

Zenobia had a particular genius for making the invisible visible. Her most profound lessons to me were rarely explicit. She helped people see the hidden systems shaping their environments — the ecological systems behind a lunch tray, the social systems embedded in a school district, the long arc of consequence behind a single decision. She would slow us down, ask what the moment needed, invite curiosity, and model what it looks like to always remain gracious.

She taught me that nothing happens in a straight line — not learning, not change, not time itself. She trusted that, like a sprout emerging from a seed, growth was happening even when it wasn’t immediately apparent. In fact, I think she preferred it that way. The nonlinear path meant there was still life in it.

And then there was her relationship with the word “impossible.” Impossible was never part of her vocabulary. But didn’t she ask the impossible of all of us? Sometimes gently, sometimes mischievously — and always proving us wrong for not believing what could be true. To take an organization founded out of an ecological think tank and transform it into a driver of education for sustainable living. To help catalyze a movement that ultimately found its way onto the lunch trays of millions of children. To insist that school food could be beautiful, nourishing, and ecologically sound. It should have been impossible.

Zenobia knew that all of us in this room are part of a shared ecosystem, and by working in harmony, we could dare to achieve the impossible. She showed us that if we stay open to the lessons of our community, we can make real change.

Working alongside her changed me. It changed how I see leadership. It changed how I see children. It changed how I understood responsibility: to myself, to each other, and to the earth.

Most of all, she taught me — and all of us — that to think ecologically is to love expansively. To recognize interdependence. To act with care for consequences. To build communities resilient enough to rebound. To learn from nature’s genius rather than attempt to dominate it.

Zenobia embodied those practices long before we ever named them. And now, it is our turn.

For the darling children.
For one another.
For the natural world she loved so dearly.