My academic and professional experience has focused on connecting people with nature, improving public engagement in conservation, and engaging with diverse audiences to help make science accessible and relatable. From volunteering with AmeriCorps, to working in policy with the Southern Environmental Law Center, to teaching K-12 STEM students, my hope is help people engage with and be curious about the world around them, become better environmental stewards, and provide students from underrepresented backgrounds opportunities to see their identities reflected in the scientific community.
Community Engagement Experience:
Certification in Community Engagement, Michigan State University
Check out my K-12 lesson plans:
Sensational Seeds: adaptations, dispersal & predation (lesson plan)
Population Booms & Busts: modeling population dynamics in the classroom (lesson plan)
Invasion Meltdown! (lesson plan)
Be a Botanist: creating a classroom herbarium (lesson plan)
Schoolyard BioBlitz (lesson plan)
Stream Leaf Packs: Habitat Selection & Macroinvertebrate Diversity (lesson plan)
Ecosystem Services (lesson plan co-developed with S. Griffin)
...and our career quiz, based on real jobs at the Kellogg Biological Station!
Community Engagement Experience:
Certification in Community Engagement, Michigan State University
- Trained in scholarly approaches to community engagement and collaborations
- Collaborated with the K-12 Partnership at Kellogg Biological Station to facilitate K-12 STEM education in rural Michigan
- Completed a portfolio focused on "Teaching & Learning" aspects of community engagement
- Led efforts to improve scientific literacy and knowledge of ecology and evolution for the public, K-12 students, and K-12 teachers
- Organized teacher professional development workshops
- Developed and presented K-12 lessons (below)
- Coordinated adult conservation education programming (e.g., Planting for Pollinators gardening workshop)
- Coordinated Kalamazoo County's first Citizen Science Panel
- Regular contributor to the Conservation Notes newsletter
- Designed a three-part course and webinar on observing and sketching nature at three ecological scales
- Check out our nature journaling programs at KBS!
Check out my K-12 lesson plans:
Sensational Seeds: adaptations, dispersal & predation (lesson plan)
Population Booms & Busts: modeling population dynamics in the classroom (lesson plan)
Invasion Meltdown! (lesson plan)
Be a Botanist: creating a classroom herbarium (lesson plan)
Schoolyard BioBlitz (lesson plan)
Stream Leaf Packs: Habitat Selection & Macroinvertebrate Diversity (lesson plan)
Ecosystem Services (lesson plan co-developed with S. Griffin)
...and our career quiz, based on real jobs at the Kellogg Biological Station!