NCDEQ Hosts Career Panel for Wake County Middle School Students for 11th Annual Statewide Students@Work℠ Program.

On March 9th, the Department of Environmental Quality's Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs held a virtual career panel for more than 30 students from Moore Square Magnet Middle School for Students@Work℠ Month. Students@Work℠ serves a critical role in our state's work-based learning efforts by helping local students become aware of potential careers and the necessary skillsets for those careers.

The 2021 Students@Work initiative includes approximately 200 employers and 18,000 students statewide. Throughout the month of March, students will engage in virtual programs where they learn firsthand about the careers available in their communities.

During the NCDEQ career panel, students had the opportunity to talk with four professionals from different divisions in NCDEQ including Billy Meyer, an environmental scientist with waste management, Linwood Peele, an environmental engineer with water resources, Ami Staples, a marine biologist with marine fisheries and Heather Wylie, a meteorologist with air quality. 

Heather Wylie, Meteorologist, Division of Air Quality

Panel members shared how they became interested in their career, their career path and some of the challenges while pursuing their degrees in college. They gave helpful advice for how to students can begin connecting their passions and interests with potential careers and how students can begin to develop the qualifications necessary for working in STEM fields through internships, job shadowing and other opportunities.

Linwood Peele, Water Supply Planning Branch, Supervisor, Division of Water Resources

Ami Staples, Statistician, Coastal Angling Program, Division of Marine Fisheries

The Students@Work℠ program is a joint initiative between the North Carolina Business Committee for Education (NCBCE) and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

For more information about the Department's participation in Students@Work℠ Month, contact the Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs at 919-707-8125. For more information about NCBCE, visit ncbce.org.

Lianna Koberoski, A Nonformal Educator in Haywood County Completes Her Environmental Education Certification

 

Lianna Koberoski, a nonformal educators in Haywood County completed her NC Environmental Education Certification. Lianna has been teaching youth informally for the last few years and recently transitioned to a landscaping and garden maintenance position where she says the plant identification skills she learned in the certification program have become extremely helpful.

Lianna says her favorite part of the certification program was taking classes about North Carolina's native plants and wildlife. She says the experience that stood out for her was the “Investigating Your Environment” workshop which is a program of the NC Forest Service. “It was so much fun, we learned methods and activities to teach certain topics, visited beautiful areas, and got to be at "camp" for a week.”

For her community partnership project, Lianna partnered with Root Cause Farm, Asheville Greenworks and Royce’s Tree Service to install a living fence of fruiting and flowering trees at a community garden in Fairview North Carolina. “The community garden, Root Cause Farm, is in the heart of Fairview and addresses the issue of food insecurity in the community and surrounding area. Root Cause Farm is a unique kind of community garden - it is a giving garden. This means that all the food grown at this garden is given away, for free, to community members in need. The garden accomplishes this by donating produce to the local food pantry, hosting “share markets,” and donating food to another organization, Bounty and Soul which distributes food to the community of Black Mountain.” 

To provide additional resources about this project, Lianna created a section to be added to the self-guided pamphlet with educational information about the trees and their intended uses. These trees will become part of a sanctuary space that community members can visit and connect with, as well as provide fruit to be given away.

Lianna says the program enhanced her knowledge and gave her different methods of asking questions to students. “I am more aware of the social issues surrounding the environment, access to nature as well as education.”

Jean Pelezo, A Teacher in Cumberland County, Completes Her Environmental Education Certification

Jean Pelezo, a 5th-grade science and social studies teacher in Cumberland County recently completed her Environmental Education Certification. 

Jean has been an educator for 32 years teaching 2nd through 6th grades. She has established and taught K-5 science labs in Texas and North Carolina and has provided professional development at the school and district level, as well as at state and national conferences. Her passions include anything related to science and the outdoors, as well as science and art integration.

Jean says her favorite part of the certification program was learning in the field with professionals. “I moved to NC 13 years ago, so this program was a great way to learn and experience North Carolina in-depth and find its many "hidden" treasures. I also enjoyed meeting people and educators with the same passion for outdoor learning!”

When asked which experience stood out for her, Jean says all the experiences were awesome but the one that stands out for her was Explore NC offered by UNC Institute for the Environment. “Explore NC took me to various locations around the state and helped me to experience the bigger picture of how North Carolina's ecosystems work separately but together. The "being there" experience was a huge component of understanding these environments, and that is what I desire to pass on to my students!”

For her community partnership project, Jean created a pollination garden on the school grounds which has a "model" garden for families and the community. Jean’s project also included a pollination party, a family night event, that invited families to come and participate in a variety of hands-on activities related to pollinators and their importance for the environment.

Jeans says the certification helped her teaching career in two ways. “First, it helped me provide richer and deeper environmental education and life science content to my students. I can apply "real-world, local" examples and experiences to my students. The second teaching aspect is that I can share these resources and experiences with my colleagues. If I can teach and share with them these resources, they, in turn, can reach those students that I wouldn't have reached otherwise.”

When asked if the program changed her views of environmental issues, Jean says, “I was born and raised in the desert southwest. It was not until I moved to NC and participated in this program that I grasped the "infinite" vastness of all the land water systems and how they directly impact our ocean. I am more cognizant and aware of the importance of recycling, especially plastics, as well as the need to keep pollutants and pollution out of our streets and waterways.”