Educator Spotlight: Brandy Oldham

Brandy Oldham, District Administrator and Education Coordinator with Chatham County Soil and Water Conservation District, recently completed her NC Environmental Education Certification.

Brandy serves as a clerk to the district’s Board of Supervisors and throughout the year, she coordinates educational events. Some of the highlights of her educational work includes volunteering each year at the annual Envirothon competition, holding events during Creek Week and coordinating the yearly conservation contents. Brandy especially enjoys working with groups. “I love doing hands-on lessons with groups. I’ve been focused on doing watershed lessons using our EnviroScape but I also do Stream Watch which is a blast.” In her personal time, Brandy likes to learn all she can about birds and plants. “I keep a flock of backyard chickens and they bring me so much joy. I also love to read, I'll read almost anything, but my favorite books are thrillers/mysteries.”

When asked about her favorite part of the program, Brandy says it was the Investigating Your Environment workshop offered by the NC Forest Service. “I met so many amazing and kind people there. I still think about all the fun we had learning about different topics during the week.” She says going to Linville Falls and Grandfather Mountain were incredible experiences that made a lasting impression on her.”

Brandy says the Methods of Teaching Environmental Education workshop was an experience that stood out for her. “The methods workshop gave me so much confidence in myself and great information about being a certified environmental educator.”

For her community partnership project, Brandy created a Creek Geeks program. This was a three-hour hands-on event that she plans to hold each year at a local park or greenway. The program includes lessons on water quality and preventing water pollution and it also includes a small trash clean up. Brandy hopes to continue adding partners to the event.

Brandy says that the program changed her approach to teaching by stressing the importance of hands-on learning as a way of nurturing respect and understanding of the natural world and encouraging a sense of responsibility for protection for our natural resources.

She also says the program changed the way she views environmental issues. “I see many sides of issues now, after the first thought pops in my head and becomes my primary feeling towards something, I've learned to step outside of that and try to find other views and positions and dive deeper into an issue. I feel more well-rounded and capable of finding out more about certain issues.”