Zoe Weil is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE), which she launched with Rae Sikora in 1996 after teaching environmental and animal-protection courses to twelve- and thirteen-year-olds at the University of Pennsylvania in 1987. She holds an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School and an M.A. and B.A. in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania.

Over nearly four decades, Weil built the field of comprehensive humane education — teaching across the intersections of human rights, environmental sustainability, and animal protection — and created IHE's graduate programs, delivered with Antioch University. She developed the Solutionary Framework, a four-phase process (identify, investigate, innovate, implement) now taught by more than a thousand educators across the US and over 80 countries. She is the author of eight books, including The Solutionary Way (2024, with a foreword by Jane Goodall) and The World Becomes What We Teach: Educating a Generation of Solutionaries, has delivered six TEDx talks, and hosts the podcast Solutionary Voices. Her honors include the NCSS Spirit of America Award (2023) and induction into the Animal Rights Hall of Fame (2010).

In this episode, Zoe talks with Svenia Busson about:

• The Solutionary Framework — a four-phase method (identify, investigate, innovate, implement) for turning students into changemakers
• Why a "solutionary" isn't the same as a problem-solver — and the ethical test that makes the difference
• Parallels with the Design for Change movement and its "I Can" model for youth-led change
• How AI can help students map root causes and stakeholders — without replacing the thinking itself
• Why compassion, built through real contact, is a starting point solutionary work can't outsource to a chatbot
• AI as a "potential nemesis" — manipulation, algorithmic drift, and the slide from healthy skepticism into cynicism
• Turning her own framework on AI itself — who's harmed and who benefits from the technology
• Concrete student wins, from cafeteria reform to rewriting school disciplinary policy