Educator Spotlight: Gretchen Castelloe

Gretchen Castelloe recently completed the NC Environmental Education Certification. Gretchen is an educator at The NC Arboretum in Asheville. Gretchen works with students and teachers. “I help youth connect with nature. I primarily work with NC teachers, to bring outdoor education and community science into their lesson plans.” In her personal time, she enjoys hiking, swimming and being outdoors.

Gretchen says her favorite part of the program was the networking. “I enjoyed meeting educators from across the state and seeing their different teaching methods. I learned so many teaching strategies just from watching how other educators led workshops.”

When asked about a certification experience that stood out to her, Gretchen says it was the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion workshop taught by Michelle Pearce through Environmental Educators of NC. “I learned so much about bias and equity work in environmental education and felt empowered to make things better.”

For her community partnership project, Gretchen planned a homeschool day at Camp Don Lee that reached 192 participants. “It offered a rare opportunity for homeschool families to experience a field trip to a place with excellent coastal education. They connected with their local environment on a deeper level as well as connected with other homeschool families in the area.”

Gretchen says the certification program changed her approach to teaching. “I feel I have new teaching strategies that I learned from other educators as well as a much broader and deeper knowledge of the resources that are available to me as an educator. I also learned something new about nature at almost every workshop or site visit!”

She says the program also changed the way she views environmental issues. “I definitely feel more connected to the environmental community after participating in the program. I know that I am not fighting these issues alone even though the news and our country makes it seem that way sometimes. I know that I have a network of environmental educators and scientists standing with me.”