About World Wide Waldens

World Wide Waldens helps young people reflect on their environment ethic - where it came from and where it's going - so they can develop an ethical compass that will help them navigate environmental issues and decisions for a life to come.

The program starts with a simple idea, inspired by Henry David Thoreau: Places like his beloved Walden Pond are essential. They connect us to nature and inspire us to think deeply about how we live, our values, and our role as humans in an astonishing and vital natural world.

We all have "Waldens." Every community does.

As participants in World Wide Waldens, students identify their own "Walden" - a place or environmental issue that needs their care, protection, or advocacy. They then design a project, carry it out, and share their story online in the World Wide Waldens Project Showcase.  If your group is already doing an environmental project, great! Use World Wide Waldens materials to make your experience even more meaningful and share your project in the Showcase.

Participants are also invited to join us for the Walden Web Summit, a special international web conference held annually that enables young people from different countries to share their projects and discuss the environmental challenges and choices facing them.

• Students ages 13-24 from any educational setting in any country may participate - school, college, club, home school, community service or independent project, etc.
• Your project can last a few hours, weeks or months. Your group decides. It all depends on your specific goals and time considerations.
• In order to participate, a teacher, advisor or adult sponsor must first register and then create the special project login(s) students need to build their Project Showcase page.

Need more information? Download a Program Overview (pdf), read Top 5 Questions, or download the complete Program Handbook (pdf).

The Walden Woods Project Team

Our staff, based in Lincoln, MA, around a bend and up the hill from Walden Pond, is a multitalented, multidisciplinary group that brings together conservationists, activists, Thoreau historians, and education specialists. As a result, World Wide Waldens participants have access to some of the world's best Thoreau resources and expertise on how to introduce Thoreau's ideas to young people and use his writing to spark environmental action. The Walden Woods Project is the also hub of a extensive network of environmental activists and experts we tap for special features like Ask the Expert on the Worldwide Waldens website, the Walden Web Summit and other activities.

The Walden Woods Project/Thoreau Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the land, legacy and literature of Henry David Thoreau and fostering an ethic of environmental stewardship and social responsibility. It was founded in 1990 by Eagles musician and recording artist Don Henley.