Lisa Deaton, left, presents the
Virginia Project Learning Tree Outstanding Educator award to
Ellen ReynoldsThis year's
Virginia Project Learning Tree (PLT) Outstanding Educator
Award was presented to Ellen Reynolds, of both Covington and
Wytheville. Ellen works as a Park Interpreter for Douthat
State Park, Education Outreach Specialist for Mountain Soil
and Water Conservation District, and Executive Director of
her own Beagle Ridge Environmental Education Center. She
began leading PLT workshops in early 2004, and has helped
establish several school gardening programs. Ellen earned a
bachelor's degree in education from Bowling Green State
University. For 17 years, Ellen Reynolds volunteered at
Reynolda Gardens at Wake Forest University. She has been an
active Master Gardener since 1990 and currently serves on
the Virginia Master Naturalist Steering Committee. Ellen has
also been a member of several garden clubs and the National
Council of Garden Clubs since 1987, where she is a
nationally accredited flower show judge. As part of her
interpretive work at Douthat State Park, Ellen manages a
very active Junior Ranger Program. She has also set up a
unique arrangement between the local schools, Douthat State
Park, and Mountain Soil and Water Conservation District,
where she provides free classroom programs to local schools
in Bath, Alleghany, and Highland counties. PLT activities
are the basis for many of these school programs. The
requests for her programs have been much greater than anyone
anticipated. In 2005, she worked with two teachers and their
students at Covington High School to build an outdoor
classroom "Nature Preserve" focused on wildlife habitat. It
includes fruit trees, perennials, herbs, a water garden, and
stepping stones made by the art students. Many classes use
the garden, including one after-school group which uses the
herbs for cooking classes and to make potpourri for local
nursing homes. The next outdoor |
classroom that Ellen established was at
Mountain View Elementary/Clifton Middle School, a combined
campus. This one started with a vermicomposting, or worm
farming, project for a fourth grade class. Mountain
View/Clifton now also has a butterfly garden and an aquatic
lab. The fourth graders have sold their worm castings to pay
for a pizza party as well as purchase a second worm bin. The
first grade will soon have a Williamsburg garden where they
will grow tobacco, cotton, and native Virginia plants. The
seventh grade is using the results of a biodiversity study
to plan the vegetation along a nature trail on campus. Ellen
has begun to plan additional outdoor classrooms at Edgemont
Elementary in Covington, Boiling Springs Elementary in
Alleghany County, and Rural Retreat Elementary School in
Wytheville County. Ellen has led several PLT workshops for
the teachers in these counties to support their endeavors.
She hosted one of these workshops at her own 160-acre
property, Beagle Ridge Herb Farm near Wytheville, which she
is working to establish as a non-profit environmental
education center. Ellen has been a proactive leader for the
Project Learning Tree program. Last November, she
represented Virginia PLT at their exhibit at the Virginia
Association of Science Teachers Convention. In December, she
helped host and lead a PLT facilitator training at Douthat
State Park. She also served on the Virginia host committee
for the PLT International Coordinators' Conference at
Virginia Beach this May. There, she was recognized as a
National PLT Outstanding Educator Honoree, and she also
presented a session on Successful Outdoor Classrooms.
Ellen's work as a PLT facilitator is extraordinary in that
her local PLT workshops are part of a larger relationship
where she exposes teachers to many hands-on ideas for their
indoor and outdoor classrooms over an extended period of
time. To help several schools build and maintain outdoor
gardens, and show the teachers how to use an outdoor
learning area for effective instruction is quite an
undertaking. The Business Plan for Environmental Education
in Virginia, www.vanaturally.com/businessplan.html, calls
for the establishment of outdoor classrooms in all 2,000
schools by the end of 2014. Ellen has personally led the way
for this initiative at six schools in two different school
divisions. Indeed, her work with PLT has impacted and will
continue to impact thousands of students. |
