News Release – November 30, 2009
Media Contact – Elizabeth Burke, 703.281.6626
The Environmental Educators of North Carolina (EENC) recently honored Shelby Gull Laird, Ph.D. candidate in the Forestry and Environmental Resources Department at NCSU, with one of the organization’s two awards for Outstanding Service. The Environmental Educators of North Carolina is the state’s professional organization representing environmental educators including classroom teachers, state and national park rangers, museum educators, and educators working in other non-formal settings.
Laird has served as EENC’s policy chair and is currently the organization’s president-elect. She has also been instrumental in creating EENC’s successful bid to host the 2011 conference of the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE). This conference, calendared for October 11-16, 2011, will bring 1,200 of the world’s environmental educators to North Carolina for a professional development conference highlighting the best of our state’s natural and cultural resources.
The NAAEE conference includes a research symposium, promising a mix of plenary presentations by well-known researchers, discussions about the future of EE research, and submitted presentations from the North American and broader international EE research community, and provides opportunities for graduate student professional development.
Over the past eight years, Laird has had the opportunity to promote environmental education in two related roles. For four years, she taught earth/environmental science at Garner Magnet High School. Subsequent to that, she developed the highly regarded “It’s Our Water” professional development program, working with the nonprofit North Carolina based Environmental Education Fund.
Commenting on her commitment to environmental education, Laird sees it as an effective tool for helping children achieve benchmarks established in North Carolina’s Standard Course of Study. “For example,” she notes, “teachers can take their students outside to monitor water quality or conduct wildlife inventories on their own school grounds. These lessons promote retention better than reading from a textbook.”
She emphasizes that environmental education isn’t just about achieving science standards. “Environmental education can be a part of every subject area, from language arts to social studies.”
“In receiving EENC’s Outstanding Service Award, I am proud to serve Environmental Educators across North Carolina to help get our citizens of all ages outdoors.”
EENC’s second Outstanding Service Award was presented to Renee Strnad, the state coordinator for Project Learning Tree (multi-disciplinary environmental education program for educators and students in PreK-12), and a liaison between the College of Natural Resources at NC State University and environmental educators.
For more information about EENC membership, please visit our website at eenc.org.
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Below: Shelby Gull Laird accepting her award from North Carolina Superintendent for Public Instruction, Dr. June Atkinson