Educator Spotlight: Kerissa Armstead

Kerissa Armstead, a Recreation Coordinator with the City of Durham Parks and Recreation, has recently completed her NC Environmental Education Certification. Kerissa credits the certification program with helping her find a job. In her position, Kerissa coordinates field trips to the park and public programs that are focused on environmental education and outdoor recreation skill building. “I am a former high school science teacher, so I love that I get to work with kids in the outdoors and share my love of nature and science! I spend a lot of time outdoors with friends and family and kind of become a default nature guide during activities in my personal time as well.”

When asked about her favorite part of the program, Kerissa says it was networking with other people who love nature. “I still keep up with some folks I got to know in the workshops. Also, I enjoyed that through the program, I was able to mix and match workshops that are tailored to my interests and skills that I want to work on.”

Kerissa says the certification experiences that stood out for her were the ones that focused on a particular type of animals such as NC State Park Interpretation and Education Specialist Brian Bockhahn’s spider workshop. “I had no idea about all the diversity around us. It gave me a lot more appreciation for the littlest creatures.”

For her community partnership project, Kerissa strengthened the Franklinton Community Garden by improving volunteer coordination, community awareness, and administrative organization. “I recruited student volunteers, streamlined scheduling, and managed social media and public outreach. Franklinton is a small rural town where access to fresh food and community engagement is vital. My project helped connect residents, provide education, and improve access to fresh produce.”

Kerissa says the certification program led to changes in her approach to teaching. She continues to use resources from several of the workshops including Growing Up Wild and Project WILD, programs of the NC Wildlife Resources Commission and Project Learning Tree, a program provided by NC State University - Extension Forestry and more. “I haven’t had to ‘reinvent the wheel’ for different activities for programs. It has also helped me come up with ideas to scale a program up or down in age if we don't have a version of something for a specific age group. For example, it's nice to be able to pull in a song or game from Growing Up Wild” for younger students.”

Kerissa says the program also changed the way she views environmental issues. “This program helped me know how to talk about environmental issues with the public. Since I studied environmental science in college, conversations with colleagues could become very technical, but this program helped me know how to make these issues understandable for people who aren’t working in an environmental field.”