Katie Hicks

I currently serve as the Assistant Director of a statewide nonprofit organization, Clean Water for North Carolina. I also serve on the Board of the Cradle of Forestry Interpretive Association in Brevard, NC, and do some independent website design for individuals and organizations, especially environmental education and interpretation groups.

My favorite part of earning my certification was having a library of curricula and activity ideas as a result of attending workshops.

A lot about my certification experience stands out to me. I really enjoyed teaching 4-7 year olds during the Woodsy Owl's Curiosity Club summer program when I worked at the Cradle of Forestry as a seasonal educator. The wonder and awe at the processes of nature that shines in the eyes of kids in that age group is inspiring!

For my community partnership project, I coordinated and designed the stream monitoring aspects of the “Reclaiming urban community streams” project. My duties included curriculum planning, development of assessment strategies, and collaboration with four other partner groups to ensure that the three-day program as a whole would engage young adults in learning skills and knowledge related to reclaiming urban community streams.

Congratulations Katie!

Michelle Pearce

I am the Early Childhood Environmental Education Specialist at The North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville.

My favorite part of earning my certification was traveling around the state (and country) for the different workshops, conferences and activities. I also really loved the opportunity to network with other educators from across the state.

I was able to participate in the Yellowstone in Winter teacher workshop with the Museum of Natural Sciences in January of 2012. It was an amazing learning experience, not to mention my first trip to Yellowstone!
 

My Community Action Partnership was creating the Mountain Science Expo. This is a western region science expo and an official event of the North Carolina Science Festival. Through this event we connected the Western North Carolina community with the science at play in their own backyard. Visitors were able to meet scientists, researchers and representatives from over 20 different organizations in the fields and science and ecology and interact with their hands-on demonstrations.

Congratulations Michelle!