Educator Spotlight: Miranda Elkins

Miranda Elkins left with partners for her three-acre pollinator garden

Miranda Elkins, the Lincoln County Assistant Ranger with the NC Forest Service recently completed her NC Environmental Education Certification. Miranda works with private landowners to help manage their forests, and she visits schools for special events, supports fire prevention programs and wildfire response in the county and across the state. 

Miranda says her favorite part of earning her certification was the hands-on workshops because participants were able to take parr in the activities to make sure they would translate to the setting she would be working in. 

For her community partnership project, Miranda worked with a Beekeepers Association to establish a three-acre pollinator garden to help educate the public about the importance of our pollinators and why it is it is helpful to provide needed habitat for local pollinators. 

Miranda says the program helped change her approach to teaching. “I learned how to let my audience lead the program and adapt it to their needs. I also learned new ways to get the audience more involved in the learning process and let them build their own conclusions and decisions.”

She also says the program changed the way she thinks about environmental issues. “I now realize that a singular issue can be viewed or interpreted so differently by different groups of people based on where they are from, their own personal experiences and feelings.”