Educator Spotlight: Elizabeth Vickery-Lewis

Elizabeth Vickery-Lewis, the high school and virtual programs coordinator at the North Carolina Zoo School recently completed her NC Environmental Education Certification. She works primarily with high school students delivering hands-on and in-nature programming. Elizabeth loves spending time outdoors, traveling and she is currently working on a Master of Arts in teaching in the biological sciences.

Elizabeth says her favorite part of the certification program was being able to learn new things and to be outdoors. “Living in a world where there so often needs to be a "why" or even just an end goal feeling of advancement, this provided the space for me to prioritize what I already love to do and truly helped expand me as an educator.”

When asked about the certification experience that stood out for her, Elizabeth said it was the air quality workshop at Purchase Knob. “It’s a beautiful area with such applicable ways to teach otherwise hard to grasp concepts. I left feeling reinvigorated, equipped with strategies to teach air quality concepts effectively, and the sense of community was heightened with the overnight experiences. I have kept in contact with multiple participants despite it being a small class.”

For her community partnership project, Elizabeth facilitated a project based learning experience with middle and high school groups. “As part of my role as School and Library Programs Coordinator, and later High School and Virtual Programs Coordinator, I continued to hear the need for true project based learning facilitated by the North Carolina Zoo. Multiple teachers pointed out that in a world where students can access information extremely readily, even an interactive activity if fact based, is no longer enough to foster the love of learning and deep understanding of scientific processes – students need to actively engage in problem solving. Throughout this process I was able to advocate for a permanent summer teen conservation program, and I am now able to offer project based learning experiences to all my program applicants.”

Elizabeth said the program changed her approach to teaching. “The program promotes direct, hands-on experiences, and we were constantly learning. Often in the education field you can feel like you somehow know how to change anything into a lesson, but the program really shifts your methods overall. Just the Methods of Teaching Environmental Education training alone changed how I framed my goals and objectives in my lessons to ensure I was staying true to quality environmental education instead of merely environmental information.”

She says the program has also changed the way she views environmental issues. “It has broadened my understanding and has forced me to see new perspectives. In this political climate it can also be hard to bring up environmental issues and topics surrounding them without being incredibly uncomfortable and worrying that your peers may be in a completely different place than you. We were able to discuss our viewpoints and while everyone was relatively on the same page about concerns, it became a safe place to discuss other views or even just how to informally "teach" in our personal encounters with others even if we don't directly share our own views.”