Lauren Lampley, a Naturalist with Grandfather Mountain
Stewardship Foundation, recently completed the North Carolina Environmental
Education Certification Program. Lauren earned credit towards her Master’s in
Environmental Education through the certification program.
Lampley began the certification program while just starting
her masters in environmental education. Lampley says the program helped her
meet people and learn how to apply environmental education in her field. “The
Criteria I workshops were my favorite (part of the program) because they helped
me to get my feet wet in the EE world in fun activities.”
Lampley has lots of opportunity to educate the public in her
role as a naturalist. “My favorite thing to educate about are birds and other
wildlife. I love helping people make connections between existing knowledge and
how the information affects them.”
For her community partnership project, a requirement of the certification,
Lampley developed a bear safety program at Lees-McRae College. She developed
the program as a pilot and plans to offer the program through other organizations
in the community. Many of the local private communities have frequent bear
encounters as a result of residents lack of awareness of how to live in areas
with wild black bears. Lampley hopes the program will result in a drop in the
number of dangerous and negative bear encounters as residents become educated about
black bears.
Lampley says the Environmental Education Certification Program
provided her with new approaches to teaching. “I have learned how to educate
others about the local environment and how to use different activities to get
audiences involved.”
For more information about the North Carolina Environmental
Education Certification Program, visit the Department of Environmental Quality’s
Office of Environmental Education’s website at www.eenorthcarolina.org. For more
information about Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation, visit their site
at http://www.grandfathermountain.org
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