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.”