Educator Spotlight: Rosemary Kinch

Rosemary Kinch far right

Rosemary Kinch recently received a Gaston County Environmental Education Fellowship and completed her NC Environmental Education Certification.

In her new role, Rosemary will be guiding and engaging Gaston County students in natural science programs to increase their academic achievement and fulfill K-12 Standard Course of Study requirements. She says that it’s the joy of exploration and discovery in teaching about the environment that inspires her to provide these opportunities for communities. “I foster experiences for students of all ages and abilities and develop authentic connections with the local environment through my work with nature-based schools, outdoor summer camps, and therapeutic environmental education places and gardens.”

Rosemary says her favorite part of the certification program was learning from the environmental education facilitators that provided instructional workshops such as the Methods of Teaching Environmental Education Workshop. “Participating in the instructional workshops, such as Project Learning Tree, Food Land and People, Project WET, and Project WILD expanded my understanding and provided me with great tools to stimulate my student to pursue their own environmental connections, values, and actions.”

Rosemary says that one of the certification experiences that really stands out for her was a Project WILD instructional workshop taught by CC King with the NC Wildlife Resources Commission. “C.C. assigned us in various roles to play "Wild" games; each game provided us with analogies of real interactions with the environment, certain aspects of biotic and abiotic elements on local nature, why those occur, and the detrimental outcomes. We all suggested mitigations and possible solutions.”

For her community partnership project, Rosemary determined a need for an environmental education garden that was universal, therapeutic, and inclusive for exceptional populations in the Charlotte area. She partnered with UMAR, a nonprofit in Charlotte that promotes community inclusion, independence and growth for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities through cultural enrichment opportunities. Working with UMAR, Rosemary designed and installed a therapeutic/environmental education garden on a donated area of a public garden in Charlotte. “I partnered with a core group of exceptional adults to choose, plant, and maintain native plants.” She taught the participants about the roles and benefits of those native plants and created garden projects to support this new native habitat. This garden now provides a dedicated outdoor environment that supports ongoing learning, while simultaneously providing visitors with opportunities to engage in nature.

Watch this short video of Rosemary's project. This is a gorgeous day at the garden with participants workin gin the therapeutic garden donated by McGill Rose Garden in uptown Charlotte. Participants spent time sorting bulbs and mixing cement to make mosaics.

Rosemary says the certification program changed the way she approaches teaching others. “I am convinced that audience sensitivity, being attuned to the interests, needs, and abilities of participants enables an instructor to construct an optimum learning experience for participants. The certification program stressed how vital it is to not advocate my own or another person’s particular argument or justification of any environmental issue. Instead, communicating and connecting participants through interactions with the environment and supporting those explorations with student-based inquiry and factual knowledge, fosters the development of values and relationships that encourage responsible actions toward the environment.”

The certification program changed the way Rosemary thinks about environmental issues. “As I progressed through the program, especially during the pandemic crisis shutting down in-person attendance, the importance of our relationship to our local environmental communities increased. While it is an amazing privilege to experience outdoor environments vastly different from our own local floral and fauna, our closest connections are with the nature we live with day by day. There is a saying ‘do not despise small beginnings.’ The program augmented my own determination to support students in their developing passions for environmental issues affecting their local communities, because they are most intimately tied and affected by those issues.” 

Educator Spotlight: Carol Hambridge

Carol Hambridge, an Environmental Engineer with a passion for educating others about environmental protection through science and art, recently completed her NC Environmental Education Certification. 

Carol volunteers for Habitat and Wildlife Keepers (HAWK), which is the Matthews Chapter of the North Carolina Wildlife Federation. She maintains a neighborhood fairy garden and “Little Owl’s Lending Library” with books about nature and stewardship. She also has a cutting garden where she grows flowers to give away through her non-profit, “Fill Up My Vase.” The garden is also used as a teaching garden. She enjoys camping, hiking, painting, photography, sewing and making digital murals.

Carol looks forward to sharing her knowledge through teaching the many stellar instructional programs. Her favorite part of the program was learning about the mobile phone apps iNaturalist and Merlin. “These everyday tools are easily available to everyone, and I am constantly showing others how these tools work to identify plants, insects and birds. The Merlin Bird ID App is an especially simple and powerful tool.  By recording bird sounds, anyone can discover what bird is calling, without even seeing it. By forming frequent, immediate and intimate connections to nature, further wonder and learning are ignited.

When asked about what experience stood out to her from the program, Carol mentions several adventures. “I loved learning about the stars on a cold January night through an outdoor Zoom call with a professor of astronomy, learning about all the different frog calls in NC, and going on a mushroom hike with a mycologist. “My most memorable experience, however, was finding the spotted salamander egg masses in a vernal pool at Reedy Creek Nature Park.”

For her community partnership project, Carol worked with HAWK to design a new educational sign at Squirrel Lake Park near the pollinator garden and bee hotel. The new sign will allow people using the park to learn about solitary bees and inspire them to help bees by creating backyard habitats, reducing pesticide use, and planting native flowers. She also created a display with posters, sample bee houses, nesting materials, an informational handout, and fifty take-home solitary bee house kits with instructions for the Matthews Kids in Nature - Earth Day Festival. The handout includes ways to improve backyards to create native bee habitat. Her project also included modifying the existing bee hotel at Squirrel Lake Park by replacing some of the drilled logs with updated nesting tube structures that can be replaced for cleaning.

When asked if the program changed her approach to teaching, Carol says, “my previous approach was more focused on the environmental issues and what we should be doing to mitigate the problems. The certification program has inspired me to focus on the wonder of nature instead of the problems. Concurrently, there is a significant need for all ages of our population to nurture our well-being through closeness to nature. By cultivating this essential human nature connection, we promote the desire to learn more, cultivate a deeper appreciation, and a desire to protect.”