Janna Hockenjos is an environmental educator living in the United States. She is the founder of Earth Friends, a national nonprofit that provides the first-of-its-kind integrated framework for teaching environmental education to young children through an interdisciplinary, integrated school program and professional development opportunities for pK-2 educators. Janna believes that the youngest generation can rewrite the story of disconnection, distraction, and our diminishing natural world, and Earth Friends was created to empower future innovators, problem-solvers, creatives, and doers.

Ever since she was a little girl reading about the Exxon Valdez spilling eleven million gallons of crude oil into the Prince Edward Sound, Janna has been steadfast in her care and concern for the world around us. As an adult, she continues to encourage and support others in finding ways to live in harmony with our environment and each other. She has received the Alliance for NJ Environmental Education ( ANJEE) “Excellence in Environmental Education Award” for 2024.

Janna is a book editor with a master’s degree in Magazine Journalism from New York University and a 500 HR registered yoga teacher. She is a published author: He Never Liked Cake (Janna Leyde) and Move Feel Think: Yoga for Brain Injury, PTSD, and Other Forms of Trauma (Janna Leyde). She lives in Pine Beach, NJ, with her two young children, husband, golden retriever, and their backyard food forest. Recently, they have been discovering one of the most uniquely biodiverse ecosystems in the world, the Pine Barrens of the Eastern Seaboard.