MEarth (“ME-earth”) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit environmental education organization based in Carmel, California. Through hands-on experiences, we help youth and adults build deeper connections to the world around them and recognize their ability to make choices that support people and the planet.

Our Mission 

MEarth educates and inspires through environmental stewardship.

Our Vision

MEarth is building an interconnected community of engaged citizens and future leaders by promoting analytical thinking through experience-based learning at the Hilton Bialek Habitat.

Our Values

• Sustainability: Caring for natural resources and biodiversity for future generations.
• Education: Inspiring curiosity through hands-on, experience-based learning.
• Stewardship: Building care, responsibility, and connection to the natural world.
• Community: Strengthening relationships and recognizing our interconnectedness.
• Integrity: Acting with honesty, transparency, and accountability.
• Passion: Bringing creativity, enthusiasm, and purpose to our work.
• Leadership: Empowering people to make choices that support people and the planet.

How we teach

We believe the way people experience learning shapes what they take away from it. When learning is hands-on, rooted in place, and connected to real-world systems, people build deeper understanding, stronger connections, and a greater sense of agency to make a difference. Together, these ideas shape the principles that guide how we teach:

• Experiential Learning — Understanding grows through active participation, observation, experimentation, and reflection.
• Place-Based Learning — Meaning is built by connecting learning to the places, experiences, and environments around us.
• Curiosity & Discovery —Learning is fostered by curiosity and wonder, leading us to investigate, explore and make new discoveries.
• Interconnection — Critical thinking emerges when students see how different parts of a system are connected and how changes in one part can affect the whole.

Where we teach: the Hilton Bialek Habitat

Our home base is the Hilton Bialek Habitat, a ten-acre environmental learning space shaped by nearly three decades of restoration, education, and community care. 

Affectionately called the Habitat, it includes native plant and pollinator gardens, an organic production garden and orchard, composting and vermiculture systems, a solar-powered greenhouse, outdoor classrooms, restored habitat, and our LEED-certified Green Building and teaching kitchen.

Together, these spaces allow learning to move beyond textbooks and into experience.

Here, a lesson about ecosystems can happen while restoring native habitat. A conversation about food systems can begin with harvesting a vegetable. Science, stewardship, cooking, gardening, and community are not separate subjects—they are different ways of understanding the same interconnected world.