AmeriCorps Member Expands Service With EE Certification

Barbara Goldentyer recently completed a 10-month service term with the Triangle Land Conservancy. Barbara also completed her N.C. Environmental Education Certification during that time. As part of her service, Barbara taught classes for local partners, such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, the East Durham Children's Initiative and the Salvation Army.


Barbara credits the EE Certification workshops and classes with giving her a variety of fun activity ideas strategies for using outdoor and nature play with children, as well as giving her a lot of nature and environment content knowledge.
Barbara recalls one memorable moment at the East Durham Children's Initiative: "I brought a corn snake to a program with the East Durham Children's Initiative. We talked about reptiles, what makes an animal a reptile, what adaptation reptiles have, and why snakes are important and beneficial to our ecosystem and then the kids got to touch the snake. After the program, I was packing everything up, several of the kids who'd been scared of the snake wanted to see it again. One little boy just sat there very gently petting the snake with one finger for several minutes. Seeing that change in how he related to the animal in just one class really stands out to me."

For her project, she developed and facilitated a series of programs with the East Durham Children's Initiative STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) summer program that consisted of eight programs for their middle and elementary school students with hands-on activities including meeting a corn snake, making reptiles out of model magic, and learning to use binoculars. The last week Goldentyer took the children out to Horton Grove Nature Preserve for a field exploration. "The East Durham Children's Initiative operates in a low income part of East Durham and many of kids had never been to a nature preserve before, so I think that experience alone, made a huge difference."