Julia Hardy, a Conservation Program Education Specialist and Administrative Assistant for Wilkes County Soil and Water Conservation District Completes Her NC Environmental Education Certification.

Julia Hardy, a Conservation Program Education Specialist and Administrative Assistant for Wilkes County Soil and Water Conservation District completed her NC Environmental Education Certification. 

When she is not working, Julia enjoys spending time with her husband and two children outdoors, riding horses, playing with her four dogs, and helping with her church youth group. Her favorite part of earning her certification was meeting other educators in the program and learning different ways to educate others about the environment. 

Julia says the certification experience that stands out for her is the NA Bat Acoustic Monitoring Program. For this program she volunteered to drive a North American Bat monitoring route with equipment provided by NC Wildlife Resources Commission attached to her vehicle to collect bat data. The data was based on the sounds from the bats collected digitally at night. “My husband and children were able to go with me when the route was driven and were we able to not only hear the bats being found with the equipment but with the use of a tablet we were also able to see 2-3 suggested types of bats that the system recognized. The best part is all this was going back to research and we will eventually get results to let us know for sure what we heard and saw, also, we never realized how many bats are really always around us or even how many varieties of bats are in our area!”

For her community partnership project, Julia created online folder of lessons as a resource for other educators and students. “When the stay-at-home order began for COVID-19, everyone was in panic mode to do virtual/distance learning. I had already started the process of creating sample lessons to share with my local teachers to help promote my environmental lessons. As time went on, I talked with the local 4-H extension agent, local women’s Farm Bureau group, and other soil and water educators. Everyone I talked with was needing some way to share our resources, ideas, and lessons.” Julia was able to share the resources with other educators and new lessons and modifications are continuously being added. Julia recently added a virtual field trip to for 5th-9th graders. She offers to do all the lessons virtually, in-class, or in outside spaces with students.

Julia says participating in the certification program helped her tremendously. “I changed my approach to teaching others by learning how to read the group and making needed adjustments during the lesson to keep everyone engaged.”

Julia says the program changed the way she approaches environmental issues. “The program provided me with the tools to help others understand and learn from the environment around them including what impacts their environment and how to care for the environment.”