Environmental Education

Why I'm adding my NC Environmental Educator (EE) Certification

Today's students are bombarded with technology. Teaching online during the Covid pandemic opened my eyes to how many students don't get outside or out into nature or are even aware of the natural resouces of North Carolina. Factors affecting this include: culture, beliefs or feelings about nature and the environment, family schedules, lack of accessibility or affordability, and others. I began sharing my "weekend adventures" of hiking and nature photography with my students and watched their interest and excitement grow to learn about the world around us.

In addition, school librarians can be the heart of collaboration within their school communities. Going through the EE certification process has allowed me to explore a multitude of cross-curricular connections and in turn given me the resources and confidence needed to increase collaborations with the science teachers at LRMS. Not only has the process helped me to become a better educator by learning new methods, learning activities and assessment, providing me with a deeper understanding of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion and how those concepts fit within education, but the process has also re-energized my enthusiasm for my role as a school librarian.

How I'm becoming an Environmental Educator

In-person workshops

• Methods of Teaching Environmental Education

• Don't Waste It!

• Project Wet

• Project Learning Tree

• Project WILD

Online courses

• Basics of EE

• JEDI - Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion in Environmental Education

• EE Program Guidelines for Excellence

Educator Treks with the NC Museum of Natural Sciences

• Got Elk?

• Project RESTORE: Where Swans Fly, Bears Walk, and Wolves Howl

• Butterfly Pinning and Backyard Bug Collecting

Miscellaneous programs

• Citizen Science: Creek Dipping at Durant Road Nature Preserve

• Bumblebee Watch at Prairie Ridge Ecostation

• How Many Ways to Eat a Plant at Horseshoe Farm Nature Preserve

• Serious Skills for Adults: Butterflies 101 at Blue Jay Point 

• Purple Martin Banding at Prairie Ridge Ecostation

Implementing at school

• Sponsor of LRMS Environmental Club (EC)

• Leave the Leaves lesson & campaign with the EC and 7th grade science classes, integrating WCPSS endorsed eWISE research model

• Student Survey for pre and post assessment

• Acoustic Architecture lesson with 6th grade science classes

• Incredible Journey interactive water cycle lesson with 7th grade science classes

• Food Web interactive lesson with 8th grade science classes

Community Project

Pollinator Gardens & Monarch Waystations at LRMS for use by Leesville Road Elementary, Middle and High Schools' students, staff and classes. And coming soon! QR code at each garden/station for visitors to submit their pollinator observation data, which the Environmental Club students will submit to The Great Sunflower Project.