Educator Spotlight: Rhonda Sturgill

Sturgill puts out a residual fire on the base of a 

longleaf pine tree with sandy soil after a control burn.

Rhonda Sturgill, a conservation planner for The Nature Conservancy, recently completed the N.C. Environmental Education Certification Program. As a conservation planner, Sturgill is focused on purchasing conservation easements and ecological significant tracts for The Nature Conservancy. She also helps implement prescribed burns on her organization’s lands.  

Sturgill says her favorite part of earning her certificate was meeting people and learning about their experiences in the environmental field. “I now have a greater appreciation for the challenges everyone faces in their work with the public, natural resources, and environmental education,” said Sturgill.

“I enjoyed attending workshops but my favorite part of the program was visiting different sites across North Carolina,” continued Sturgill. “It gave me a greater appreciation for our state’s natural diversity.”

For her community partnership project, Sturgill taught a group of Alternative Spring Break college students from Michigan about the fire-adapted longleaf pine ecosystem. The students, who were mostly non-environmental majors, participated in several hands-on activities and Sturgill led them in planting 14,000 longleaf pine seedlings. Sturgill said the most rewarding part of this project was hearing some of the students later say that connecting with nature was a life-changing experience for them.

Since starting the process to earn her environmental education program certificate, Sturgill has also completed her Masters in Environmental Management. Rhonda reflected on her experience in the certification program, “The environmental field is extremely broad, but by working together we can achieve a greater outreach effort and accomplish more.”