Outdoor Education Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Outdoor Education Exposes West Virginia Youth To Wild and Wonderful Opportunities

Outdoor education opportunities making a difference in kids’ lives.

By Maddie Swecker

The audio above originally aired in the Jan. 2, 2024 episode of West Virginia Morning. WVPB reporter Chris Schulz spoke with student Maddie Swecker to discuss this story.

When Ali Jeney first saw a 6th grader transform from quiet and shy to the star of his class, she knew something was working. Jeney is the director of Science Adventure School (SAS), and she says she sees this happen every week.

SAS is a week-long science adventure camp at the Summit Bechtel Reserve between Fayetteville and Beckley. It is designed for West Virginia’s 6th graders, and Jeney said students come to camp introverted and lonely and leave feeling like they belong with their classmates and at home in West Virginia.

This feeling is not created solely through time in the outdoors, but through a carefully planned and executed outdoor curriculum involving learning and playing.

“People call us ‘the camp’ a lot,” Jeney said. “And although we’re outdoors, I wish people could see more than a year that went into designing up to the pilot. This is such a carefully designed program.”

SAS hits on two major areas that improve learning for children: a new environment and a feeling of belonging. Instructors guide students through various adventure activities such as mountain biking and archery, then teach them the science behind the sports. The camp is mainly funded by private donors.

These activities are lots of fun for the students, and the playful aspect of this curriculum is by no means an accident according to Jeney.

“Play is very purposeful,” she said. “You play to energize, to introduce and break down barriers. You play for a lot of reasons that are critical to experiential and outdoor education.”

Anna Herchl, environmental educator at SAS, said she has seen firsthand how kids fall in love with learning.

“One of my favorite memories from camp is when we took them out and taught them about the PH level of water.” she said. “Later on in the week, I had a little girl ask me while we were canoeing, ‘What do you think the PH level of this water is Anna?’ and honestly, hearing that just makes me so excited that they are taking away a new appreciation for science.”

Getting kids outside in the Mountain State not only is a great way to experience growth and learning, but also creates a sense of belonging and connection to the natural world that surrounds them.

Kirk Mitchell, outdoor education guide at SAS, has seen kids come to camp wishing to live somewhere else and leave being excited about their home in West Virginia.

“A lot of kids in this state feel like they want to leave when they graduate because they don’t want to do the same things as their parents,” he said. “By showing them how cool this state is through adventure sports and science, we can help them to realize that they have all that right in their backyard. They can be scientists in this state and not have to follow the blue collar work that many West Virginians have traditionally worked in.”

Two sixth graders load arrows for archery during the Science Adventure School at the WVU Outdoor Education Center near Coopers Rock State Forest on Oct. 24, 2023.

Sixth graders are transitioning from elementary school into middle school, and programs like SAS help them to process that change. But, there are plenty of schools around West Virginia that are aiming to get the same effects on younger children.

The Monongalia Forest School is an outdoor school aimed at children aged 3-7 and their families. With meetings two times a week, their goal is to get children out into nature to gain confidence and fall in love with the outdoors while learning practical skills. The sessions are never canceled due to cold weather, only dangerous weather stops these kids.

Katie Switzer teaches 3–7-year-olds at the Monongalia Forest School. She believes that getting children outdoors is not only beneficial for them but also for their parents. By getting parents involved in education, they can then have the ability to help their children to continue to grow and learn outside of the classroom in non-traditional settings, like a hiking trail.

“When I first started going outdoors with my kids, it felt overwhelming because I didn’t know where to go and I didn’t know what activities to do,” Switzer said. “I tried to incorporate that into the program by making these hikes, trail maps, giving trail maps for the hikes and getting them (the families) comfortable so that they feel like, ‘Hey we can go out here on our own and we’re able to do it.’”

Outdoor education is not a new concept in West Virginia. Outward Bound (OB) is an international organization that has offered outdoor education programs in the Dolly Sods Wilderness since 1986 through its Chesapeake Bay School. Former Outward Bound instructor Jacob Rex has seen first-hand the positive impact that can come from outdoor learning.

“Outward Bound employs a curriculum that, at its core, has remained unchanged for almost a century,” he said. “It builds character in young people that fundamentally changes their lives. I know dozens of stories of people, who are now in their 60s, recounting their OB trip as one of the best experiences they’ve had in their life. The medium the wilderness provides to the human brain is unequivocal in catalyzing growth in mind, body, and spirit.”

More and more outdoor schools are popping up around the state and nation each year. This could be attributed to promising research done on the topic.

Researchers for a 2019 article in Frontiers in Psychology conducted a meta-analysis of dozens of peer reviewed articles and studies about learning outside and concluded that nature-based learning worked better for disadvantaged students, inspired interest in students who were not engaged and provided a more open atmosphere for learning and forming social ties.

Not only is outdoor education getting kids excited about learning, but it is also combating the mental health crisis that young people have been facing.

The mental health crisis in the state of West Virginia was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 3000 kids went to WVU Medicine emergency rooms in 2022 seeking mental health care, a 62 percent increase from previous years. At SAS, Jeney said kids go from being lonely to being connected to their classmates. “They’re so happy because sometimes they don’t even know other students know their name, then they leave Science Adventure School with a cohort of 15 people who know about them and love them and care about them and they know it.”

Educators like Jeney and Switzer believe the answer to some of the problems kids today are facing, like the mental health crisis, may lie in outdoor education.

SAS puts a lot of effort into making sure that every group creates a welcoming environment that is conducive to learning and having fun. Just having this support and being in a new environment can boost the confidence of students and push them to become more curious and rediscover a love for learning.

One of the largest criticisms of outdoor education is that there is not enough research showing the long-term effects that it has on children who go through it. Jeney is a huge advocate that every 6th grader in West Virginia should get to experience outdoor education regardless.

“One of my favorites (memories) is a student who was the ‘mathlete’ if you will, one might call a ‘nerd’ and who absolutely smoked the big cool basketball team member and became a legend to his teammates. For the first time, (he was) feeling appreciated and loved and like people were looking up to him. He helped his whole team get to the top of the climbing wall,” she said. “It’s moments like that that are like, there is no question. I don’t need the research. I don’t need to see 10 years of data to see that this program is changing these kids. It’s changing them in the best ways in four days and you just would never believe it unless you could see it.”

A 6th grade student at SAS poses proudly next to the arrows he just shot into a target at the WVU Outdoor Education Center on Oct. 19, 2023. All of his fellow classmates cheered him on as he almost shot a bullseye.

Outdoor Education And Improving West Virginia Corrections, This West Virginia Morning

A WVU student looks at the effect of outdoor education on student success, and a look at improvements to the West Virginia Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

On this West Virginia Morning, a West Virginia University student looks at the effect outdoor education is having on student success, as well as the state’s future.

Also, reporter Rande Yohe looks at improvements that West Virginia’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation have made ahead of the state legislature’s upcoming 2024 regular session.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Concord University and Shepherd University.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

Mountain Nature Camp: Celebrating 90 Years Of Solace, Community, Outdoor Learning

People from all over the state and region converged in Terra Alta, West Virginia, this summer to celebrate nine decades of Mountain Nature Camp. It’s a camp where adults go to study pristine Appalachian corners of the world. Many folks came to celebrate community and traditions that have been going since 1929. But also to get their nature fix – which researchers say is critical for both human health and maybe even life on the planet.

A Tradition of Outdoor Learning, Being

“As far as I know, this is the oldest running nature program for adults in the country,” camp director Mary Grey said. She started as a camper in the 1980s. “It’s a program that lets adults come and be kids again. We do nature study, we go on bird walks, we sit around the campfire and sing songs.”

The camp property is in a forested grove outside of the small, rural town of Terra Alta in Preston County. A larger wooden structure with a kitchen and mess hall stands next to some shelters and a bath house. They’re all clustered at the edge of a small lake among mixed hardwoods, ferns, and wildlife. It’s the basecamp. Most days are spent traveling to unique and protected ecological spots nearby like Blackwater Falls, Dolly Sods, or the Cranesville Swamp.

This year campers from years past rolled in and pulled up chairs and stools in front of the main building, passing around photo albums and sharing memories.

Cindy Slater (L) sits next to Helen Wylie (R) looking at photo albums and memorabilia, celebrating 90 years of Mountain Nature Camp.

The Ultimate Classroom

Don Altemus came from Cleveland for the 90th celebration. He first started coming to camp in 1947 and for many years was a lead naturalist, teaching many classes.

Don Altemus made it from Cleveland to celebrate the 90th year of Mountain Camp. He first started to come to the camp in 1947.

Altemus is retired now, but he kept a day job as a naturalist in Cleveland for years. He says he’s always found West Virginia to be an ideal place to study and teach about the natural world.

“West Virginia for natural history is one of the most fascinating in the eastern United States,” Altemus said.

He explains that since Preston County sits 2,700 feet above sea-level, the winters get really cold, while summers are still very hot – creating a lot of ecological variety. He calls Mountain Camp the ultimate classroom.

“In nature if you don’t see anything interesting, look closer,” he said.

Mountain Camp takes place every June in Preston County for two weeks. It costs $350 a week, with some scholarships available, and has operated through Oglebay Institute since it was founded in 1929. Some campers come year after year, as well as expert naturalists, and regular newcomers who rotate through each year.

“Really for the last 90 years, the teachers that come in to teach these classes whether it’s ornithology or botany — they really are the experts in their field,” explained environmental education director at Oglebay, Molly Check. “And I think that’s why Mountain Nature Camp has lasted as long as it has and also remains relevant.”

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The Hidden Lessons, Benefits

Today, one of those experts is Bill Beatty. He’s the lead naturalist here at Mountain Nature Camp. At the edge of Terra Alta Lake — a several-acre body of water nestled into the high altitudes of Preston County — Beatty easily identifies any of the plants growing, adding facts about how they can be used or roles they’ve played throughout history.

Bill Beatty, naturalist and outdoor educator, has been coming to learn, teach, and decompress at Mountain Camp since the 1970s.

Beatty’s career from college until now has been nature-related and he’s been coming to Mountain Camp since 1972. He comes to study nature, but also for peace of mind.

“We’re sitting here looking across this lake. You don’t see a single person or anything associated with people. There aren’t many places you can go and see that,” Beatty said. “I’ve had students who I taught at a university who were inner-city and they’re very uncomfortable in this situation. It’s very foreign to them. But yet we’re learning through studies that this is the kind of thing that people need to be healthier.”

Beatty is referring to any of dozens of peer-reviewed studies that have been published over the past 40 years that share findings related to the effects of viewing and experiencing natural settings — benefits like lowered blood pressure, pulse rate, and the stress hormone cortisol as well as elevated moods and higher serotonin production (aka, “the happy chemical”).

Researchers have also discovered that people today typically spend about 90 percent of their time indoors or in a car, which can be dangerous not only because of physical inactivity, which contributes to a host of life-shortening health problems, but also because of exposure to indoor air pollutants.

Fortunately, Beatty points out, going outside is often a cheap, easy remedy. He says it’s good for our health, and maybe the planet, too.

“We have to get people to understand how valuable this is,” he said. “And what I mean by value is — you can’t stay conscious any more than four minutes without the air we breathe! You think, ‘Oh my TOOTHBRUSH is really important. I gotta brush my teeth every morning’ — which is good, that’s not a bad thing — but you don’t think about the air.”

Education director Molly Check agrees.

Every night at Mountain Camp, adult campers gather around a campfire to sing songs and share stories.

“Seven billion plus people that live on Earth. And I think everyone is aware of the different environmental problems that we face as a species. Whether you’re gonna talk about climate change or conserving water resources, there are a lot of challenges that lie ahead of us.”

Check says the best way to overcome those challenges is to gather a group of people who are very passionate about the earth and motivated to solve those problems. And she says Mountain Camp produces those types.

“You’re not going to care about those problems or even know about them unless you have that firsthand experience. The campers that are here would likely lay down their lives to save this little place in West Virginia and also by extension the natural world that found all over.”

‘Wired By Experience’ — Outdoor Ed Institution Wants More Students To Experience Learning Outside

An organization called Experience Learning in Pendleton County, has been leading kids out into pristine mountain landscapes to learn about the world, themselves and each other for about 50 years. It’s one of the longer running outdoor education institutions in the West Virginia. Organizers say they’ve spent years watching kids be transformed by outdoor experiences. More than anything else, they want kids to learn to love learning and they don’t care if kids find that love on top of a mountain, or in their schoolyards.

Having Experience Learning

The organization’s base camp is at the Spruce Knob Mountain Center — a collection of yurts which sits in a 400-acre high-elevation nature preserve. Students, families and various groups visit to experience some of the darkest night skies in the Eastern U.S., as well as the surrounding northern hardwood forests, and some of the healthiest streams in the state. The largest structure at the center is an expansive wooden multi-leveled Mongolian-inspired yurt with a dining booths on top of a full kitchen, and a round library fitted with wood burning stoves on top.

It’s usually very quiet because people don’t often come here to hangout indoors.

Experience Learning was founded in the 70s. It was originally designed to be a resource for individual families.

One of the organization’s board members, Jennifer Taylor-Ide, has been involved from the start. She remembers that individual families were hard to recruit, but schools from all over the region just started calling. So they started to put programs together for kids, teaching everything from geology to interpersonal life skills.

“What I go back to over and over is the term ‘beyond the classroom education’,” Taylor-Ide said. “I think we are wired to learn by experience — plain and simple. It’s not that there’s something wrong with classroom learning, but if you don’t have the experience of the world to call on, classroom learning gets flatter and less meaningful.”

Kids who visit seem to find meaningful experiences, but mostly they report having a lot of fun. Or at least that’s what the kids who came to visit from Northfork Elementary said.

Kids Experience Learning

Northfork Elementary Students were told they could get muddy while exploring the Sinks of Gandy in Randolph County, and most were sure not to miss the opportunity.

After a day exploring nearby forests, water, and caves students from Northfork Elementary are headed up a hill in vans and busses to catch the public school bus home. They’re dirty and spent, but still full of energy.

When asked what he learned today, Cole Harper recalled making a debris fort and his experience letting his eyes adjust to the darkness of a cave.

When asked what grade they would give Experience Learning instructors who led them through caves and around lakes, collecting hawthorn berries to make jam, students were very generous.

“A thousand percent!” said Dakota Kimble.

These are fifth graders from Northfork Elementary in Pendleton County, West Virginia. Their school and homes are nestled in the mountains of Central Appalachia near Spruce Knob. At nearly 5,000 feet above sea level, Spruce Knob is is the highest point in the Allegheny Mountains, but today kids spent a good portion of their day in a cave under the mountain.

“I learned not to run and slip,” said Callie Judy who was covered in drying mud. “You get mud in places that there should not be mud.”

It’s the first trip Northfork Elementary’s new fifth grade teacher, Stacey Slaughter, has taken with students. She said she’d love to see programs like this, that teach kids life skills in combination with academic skills, more regularly built into the public school system.

“It builds a community, it builds relationships with the kids, practical living experiences that they aren’t always receiving,” Slaughter said. “It just takes learning to the next step for me.”

Learning Rooted In Community

Experience Learning Executive Director, Vicki Fenwick, explained that the mission of her organization is really to leverage the rich resource that is the natural world to develop healthy communities. She said her organization is supported by public and private donors as well as program fees for schools and organizations that can afford them — grants pay for programming for local surrounding schools.

Fenwick wants to partner with schools in deeper, more regular ways. And while she loves bringing kids to the mountain, she wants to help teachers and kids get engaged in their own backyards.

“Schools and teachers are experts at delivering curriculum, and classroom management and all the things that have to happen in a school year, but we’re experts at taking kids outside and finding ways to use a landscape whether it’s a city block, a mountain, a cave and using that as a tool for learning,” she said.

Fenwick, and Experience Learning under her leadership, have been heavily influenced by the educational concept called place-based education. The idea is to use local communities and environments as hands-on and engaging fodder to teach concepts like language arts, math, social studies and other subjects. Research indicates that kids who use their communities as extended classrooms have increased academic success, and that there are a host of other benefits for both kids and communities. Fenwick believes it’s a model of learning that would improve community pride and investment.

“There’s some really interesting research out there about community revitalization or community problem-solving, where students are active participants and oftentimes the driving force behind real, effective changes in communities,” she said. “So we want to see that happen all over the state and region.”

She said she’s seen a growing appetite for this kind of outside learning among some school administrators throughout the region. Whether programs can take root and shape healthier learners and communities relies on whether visionary leadership exists to implement best practices.

When asked about the future, Fenwick says she also wants to see Experience Learning become more relied on to educate educators on those best practices. But in the meantime, work continues to enhance learning for kids around Pendleton County.

Learning That Transforms

Students from Northfork Elementary worked on art projects inspired by their woodland surroundings during their Experience Learning outing.

Today, a wide assortment of visitors visit the group’s mountain campus — from homeschool groups to private and public schools. Students learn about everything from watercolor painting to social justice. The kids from Northfork Elementary, for example, spent two school days collecting berries, making jam, and exploring nearby ecosystems.

“We want to get kids outside whether it be in their community or here just to learn about themselves, to be curious, to explore, to get excited about learning — just to ignite that spark,” said Program Director Melinda Brooks.

Brooks works with various groups to design programs to fit their learning needs. She says Experience Learning has no political agenda, and there’s no overarching academic focus, there’s just a driving desire to inspire kids and adults to care about the world around them.

She and the seasonally rotating staff of about 20 collect some surveys and program assessments, but don’t spend hours collecting data or assessing established measurable outcomes. But they do believe they’re having an impact.

“There’s so much that you can learn out here that I can’t even tell you want that particular student might get out of it,” Brooks said. “They might get something totally different than what the school even had in mind. It’s the transformative nature of the programs that I think is the greatest impact that we’re having.”

Yew Mountain Center Teaches Using The Land

A large wooden sign that says “Yew Here” greets visitors as they drive into the Yew Mountain Center. Nestled in the woods of Pocahontas County, West Virginia, the property for years operated as a farm. A few years ago, a group of community members sought to repurpose the land to create a place for outdoor education.

“It was really a neighborhood effort to turn this property into something that would preserve the land and also serve the community,” said Erica Marks, the center’s director.

Marks explained that when the farm property came up for sale, a group of neighbors wanted to buy it but the price was out of their range. A third party purchased the land and leased it back to the group to use for educational outreach.

Three years ago, the Yew Mountain Center opened its doors. The nonprofit creates educational experiences for groups of children and adults in a natural setting.

During a recent visit, students from the kindergarten class at Marlinton Elementary ventured into the woods to see the story “The Gruffalo,” by Julia Donaldson, come to life.

In the story, a mouse fends for his life using his wits to survive. He has to outwit a snake, a fox and an owl. The kids took owl and snake-themed hikes and participated in a fox activity that included a game and craft making.

“I really like to just kind of step back a little bit and let the children explore and show interest in what they’ve been able to find out themselves in the woods and what they can do on their own,” Marks said.

Students from the Kindergarten Class at Marlinton Elementary School use microscopes on a recent nature tour at the Yew Mountain Center.

Although these activities were created for young children, the science and natural elements weren’t simplified. The kindergarten students used microscopes to look at a snake skin, visited a pond to see frogs and even watched a volunteer dissect an owl pellet to learn what the owl had eaten.

Abigail, a thin, blonde-haired five-year-old enjoyed the microscope.

“I saw a spider web. It looked stringy like string that you would like tie stuff on,” she said.

For Marks, introducing kids to science in the natural world helps bring science to life.

“We’re listening in the forest. We’re smelling things and by using microscopes, they’re seeing this detail that they’ve never appreciated before,” she said. “These kids are 4 and 5 years old, and they’re learning to use this pretty high-tech equipment.”

The volunteers at the Yew Mountain Center make these outdoor programs available to all the local schools in Pocahontas County at no charge and offer experiences appropriate to various age ranges. The program relies largely on donations and fundraising.

Students from Marlinton Elementary School trek off to a pond as part of their recent nature experience at Yew Mountain.

Marks said she prefers to offer programs like this early in the school year because it helps teachers understand how individual students learn.

“The outdoors are great because teachers and students and the family members that are here, they’re interacting with the children in a different way than they do in the school and they can strengthen their relationships with the kids,” she said.

She explained that some students learn well in a traditional classroom. Others learn with worksheets and on the computer.

“I feel like this is a way for students who don’t learn well that way to come out in nature and show that they’re really good at a different way of learning,” Marks said.

Making a Difference Locally, Globally: Teacher Leads Student Recycling Program In Wyoming County

Not many high schools can say their students operate an award-winning recycling program for their county, much less small schools in rural communities.

But teens at New Richmond’s Wyoming East High School get to do just that. Since launching their student-and-volunteer-run recycling program in 2017, members of the school’s Friends of the Earth club have salvaged thousands of recyclable items that otherwise would have ended up in local parks and public roadways.

The group has received several grants and honors from local and national organizations alike, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the state Department of Education, Try This WV and the PepsiCo Recycling Rally.

According to Brittany Bauer, a life sciences teacher sponsoring the club, her students wanted to be “involved in their community and given an opportunity to lead.”

“Ultimately, they became community game-changers, because they had an idea. And they followed through with it. They were creative and determined, and they worked really hard. … And they saw the change.”

Bauer helped revive Friends of the Earth in 2015 with five students from her AP Environmental Science class.

“One of the students was really moved by learning about the tragedy of the commons, and how with these public spaces, we don’t take care of them,” Bauer said. “After that discussion, they started looking around at their environment, and looking at the litter on the side of the road.”

When students first started recycling, Bauer said they started with a 1,000 to 2,000-can goal in mind. They surpassed that within a week. One month later, Friends of the Earth moved onto types No. 1 and No. 2 plastics.

“We were just doing it within the school,” Bauer said. “And then I think some of their parents and their family members, they said, ‘We need this in our entire county, can the school manage that for our entire county?’”

Last school year, Friends of the Earth recycled more than 11,000 pounds of plastic and aluminum, according to data from the school. Factoring in metals and cardboard, the school reports its club recycled more than 17,000 pounds of material.

Brittany Bauer, a teacher at Wyoming East High School, sorts some of the recyclable items her students collect, as members of the school’s Friends of the Earth club.

This year, Bauer says a total 67 students plan to join Friends of the Earth. The group’s goals are still largely influenced by those classroom discussions Bauer facilitated four years ago — not only does the group accept, sort and transport locally-collected plastics to the Raleigh County Waste Authority, but it holds school-wide recycling contests, and they manage recycling for local events, like the Mullens Dogwood Festival.

“Recycling, and kind of the movement that the students created, is drawing awareness to how we should manage our waste more responsibly,” Bauer said.

High Praises From National, Local Organizations Alike

Bauer, a Houston native, came to West Virginia after working for AmeriCorps. She started at Wyoming East as a Spanish teacher. Today, she teaches AP Biology, Honors Biology and Life Sciences from a science-lab-style classroom in the back of the school.

She keeps a small zoo of class pets by the lab stations, including a bearded dragon named Fuego.

“They get to feed the animals and they get to manage it. So it’s a little bit more hands-on in that way,” Bauer said. “And doesn’t it make it more exciting? I mean, having that little distraction of, ‘Okay, Fuego, what’s he doing today?’ It’s just nice.”

Students in Brittany Bauer’s classes for biology and life sciences manage and study class pets.

In July, the EPA honored Bauer with a Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators. In 2016, she traveled to the Galapagos Islands as a National Geographic Grosvenor Teacher fellow.

Friends of the Earth itself has garnered much recognition and support for its environmental work. Last school year, Bauer and the club secured a $26,000 grant from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protections for their county board of education, to increase recycling. The club also received a $5,000 grant from the state Department of Education to convert some No. 2 plastics into materials for 3D printing.

A $2,000 grant from Try This WV helped students and volunteers clean litter from more than 30 miles of roadside. Amy Vest, now a tenth grader in Bauer’s Honors Biology class, helped clean with her older sister last year.

“A couple times over the summer, and during school too, we did litter cleanups in Maben,” Vest said. “And people would honk at us as we were going by. So we were doing a good job.”

Vest and her classmates noticed a lot of the items were recyclable.

“We have a lot of people who are on fixed incomes and don’t have a way to transport (recyclables),” Bauer said. “If they don’t have a vehicle, which a lot of our residents don’t have vehicles, how are we expecting them to get rid of this trash? I think that really contributes to a lot of the litter that we have on the side of the road … We can provide a way to reduce some of that. I think recycling, and kind of the movement that the students created, is drawing awareness to how we should manage our waste more responsibly.”

Appreciating The Environment Locally, Respecting It Globally

When Bauer was in the Galapagos Islands, she said a guided tour of the ecosystem there helped her discover plants and animals she wouldn’t have recognized on her own.

Brittany Bauer, a teacher at Wyoming East High School, waits for students to arrive to her next class.

“People travel to the Galapagos not for the city, but to see the big giant tortoises — they want to see the animals,” Bauer said. “We have that in southern West Virginia — we have unique species; we have different crayfish that you can’t find anywhere else in the world.”

A few years later, she took her AP Environmental Science students for a hike a Twin Falls, a state park just thirty minutes away from the school.

“They went hiking with a naturalist and they were just blown away, because he was just pointing out ginger, these medicinal foods and how our culture here ties to that,” Bauer said.

As students begin to appreciate the nature surrounding them, Bauer said she hopes they’ll continue to care for it and encourage others to do so, too.

“When you’re proud of your area, you want to take care of it, you want it to be clean, and that really was a stimulus for them to start discussions about what we can do to change our community and take that leadership.”

But in Bauer’s class, the benefits of reducing local waste extend far beyond the flora and fauna of Wyoming County.

“If we’re littering or dumping illegally, and it’s just plastic that ends up getting into the river, we talk about this with the students. Like, where does it go from our river? Well, the Guyandotte connects to where? And they start talking about Huntington and the Ohio River, but the Ohio River goes where? So you can follow how the recyclables, and (the) plastics eventually get into our oceans.

“We take this local lens, and then apply it to a global level, so they can see how what we do here does affect our Earth. If everybody has that same mindset that we can just dump our trash, we all are contributing to what’s happening in our oceans.”

Emily Allen is a Report for America corps member.