Educator Spotlight: Angela Craven

Angela Craven, an Environmental Educator at Piedmont Environmental Center in High Point, recently completed her NC Environmental Education Certification. 

Angela provides environmental programs that align with the NC Science Standards for visiting school groups, and she creates original programming for homeschool groups and the public. Angela is also and is the current vice president of the Piedmont Bird Club and in her personal time, she enjoys birding, spending time in nature and reading.  

Angela says her favorite part of earning her certification was the networking. “I enjoyed having the opportunity to take different classes and meeting other people in the field. It was fun to spend the day in a class with others that enjoy doing what I do.”

The certification experience that stands out for Angela is the program on presenting thematic talks and hikes for effective impact at Pilot Mountain State Park. I found this training very helpful with wonderful information. I think it helped me become better at creating my program plans and outlines for homeschool and public programing.

Angela says she also really enjoyed putting together the “Feather Fest” birding festival for her community partnership project. The festival included 10 local groups, two speakers and educational opportunities for the community to learn more about the birding world and how to support birds locally. “It was so much fun speaking with all those involved and seeing how excited they were to be a part of the festival. I loved that at the end of the day we had so many people commenting that they hope we do this every year. To me that shows that the festival was a success and that it engaged the participants enough to want to come back again.”

Angela says the program changed her approach to teaching. “Participating in the certification program helped me to be more aware of how I teach so that I can be sure to include as many people from as many walks of life as possible. It helped me analyze how I engage with participants so that I can critique my methods and then improve on them as needed.”

She says the program also changed the way she views environmental issues. “I think the biggest change was in realizing that we need to approach teaching of environmental issues not just from a standpoint of this is what we need to fix and why, but also from a view that some people may be coming from a place that these issues do not seem important to their everyday struggles. I try to find ways to engage those that may not see how environmental issues affect everyone no matter where they are in life.”