Educator Spotlight: Desirae Balsamo

Desirae Balsamo, an Earth and Environmental Science teacher at Hanes Middle School in Winston-Salem, recently completed her NC Environmental Education Certification.

Desirae advises the garden club and collaborates with community gardens through Cooperative Extension to find resources for her school, and she is very active in her school and community. “I spearhead sustainability initiatives at my school, document progress and submit work through the "Clean and Green" Schools contest with the City of Winston Salem. We have an award winning, highly engaging curricular approach where students are active participants in regenerative agriculture and environmental conservation. Beyond that, I am an assistant Scout Master for Scouting America, a co-facilitator for 4-H and volunteer with cooperative extension as a master gardener and master naturalist. Outside of work, I live on a small permaculture based microfarm with my husband, my 14-year-old and an eclectic blend of bees and goats.”

Desirae says her favorite part of the program was the opportunity to travel and network. “I most enjoyed traveling around the state and working with environmental educators in a variety of contexts. I have a network of connections that will improve my teaching approaches for years to come.”

Desirae notes that her experiences at Grandfather Mountain had a profound effect on her teaching. “I have particularly enjoyed every professional development experience at Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation. I always came away with new and exciting things to use in my curriculum and have met and made lifelong friendships and connections I cherish.”

For her project, Desirae applied for funding to take her students on a  “Mountains to Sea” adventure to learn about marine and freshwater conservation. “I teach at a Title I school and many of our students have minimal exposure to the natural world and limited opportunities for field trips. To remedy this, I applied for and received four grants to take our students on a freshwater conservation trip to Stone Mountain State Park in the fall and a marine conservation trip to the Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores and Fort Macon State Park in the spring.

Desirae’s students were able to apply what they learned on the field trips at their school by cleaning the campus creek, completing a bioindicator study and learning about the immediate point source and nonpoint source pollution and how it affects cranefly, crayfish and caddisfly larva on the school’s campus.

“We worked in the creek that runs through our property to use water quality indicators to assess and plan how to improve it. We did clean up in the fall and completed indicator studies in the months of March and April 2026 that included pH, Nitrates/Nitrites, phosphates, ammonia, turbidity and a macroinvertebrate study. We also removed as much point source pollution and litter as possible and planted pawpaw trees along the bank of the creek to reduce the stormwater runoff.”

Desirae worked with numerous organizations to provide this unique experience for her students, many of whom had never been to an estuary or even knew there was a creek on their campus. Among those organizations Desirae worked with were the NC Association for the Gifted and Talented, the NC Aquarium Scholars, the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources’ Learning Happens Here program, Friends of NC State Parks, Forsyth County Cooperative Extension, Hanes Middle School Garden Club and EcoWarriors, Fort Macon State Park, the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores and Stone Mountain State Park.

Desirae says the certification program changed her approach to teaching. “Participating in this program has tremendously added to my ‘teacher toolbox’ of resources to add real life examples and hands on experiences for students and fellow staff. I recommend this to anyone interested in environmental education or teaching future changemakers the importance of conservation and service learning.”