Educator Spotlight - Courtney Rousseau

Courtney Rousseau, an environmental educator at the Agape Center for Environmental Education in Fuquay-Varina recently completed her NC Environmental Education Certification. Courtney leads educational programs and guided hikes that provide students with the opportunity to experience the natural world around them. She is also the president of the NC Purple Martin Society, a nonprofit organization focused on the conservation of the purple martin in North Carolina. Courtney enjoys educating others about nature and creating opportunities for people to connect to their local environment.

Courtney says her favorite thing about earning her certification was learning about new and creative ways to teach concepts to students in an engaging way. She also enjoyed visiting centers and learning about the different ecosystems in our state.

Courtney says the certification experience that stood out for her was the community partnership project. “The project gave me the opportunity to use a lot of different skills through research, teaching, collaboration, and communication. I also enjoyed enhancing and improving the natural habitat for the project and teaching the volunteers why these habitats are important.”

Nature Trail Before Courtney's Project 

For her community partnership project, Courtney restored an old nature trail at West Lake Elementary School in Apex. Her partners included the West Lake Elementary’s PTA and South Wake Conservationists. “The nature trail needed repair and updating, and with the assistance of both community groups, a plan for update was made and implemented over the course of several months and workdays. The nature trail now has a safe entryway bordered with native plants and 23 educational signs along the trail geared to students, to help spark their interest in learning more about the ecosystem. The purpose of the trail is to be an engaging teaching area for staff and students as well as an example of a piedmont ecosystem with native plants.”

Nature Trail after Courtney's Project

Courtney says the program changed her approach to teaching. “I aim to be inclusive of all students, consider their comfort in outdoor conditions and attempt to scale my teaching techniques to various ages of students. After participating in the certification program, I think about environmental issues on a student's level, as well as globally, and try to explain how our individual actions can affect those environmental issues.”