It’s not every day we get to send a Boxerwood educator to a national conference all expenses paid.Thanks to travel-specific funding from US NOAA/B-WET, our colleague Ginny Johnson attended the annual North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) Conference in Tucson, Arizona last month.
It was Ginny’s first immersion in the larger environmental education world, and as we expected it wasn’t just high desert and cactus that made an impression. “Wow! There are so many lovely people doing amazing work in outdoor education,” she said, “and it was wonderful to get to talk to so many of them from around the country.” The largest gathering of outdoor educators on the continent, the NAAEE is a powerhouse for networking and innovation.
During her intense 3-day adventure, Ginny learned new strategies and activities to bring back to Boxerwood while also sharing what we’ve been up to in our neck of the woods. She also got to personally meet and thank some of the NOAA administrators who have been so supportive of our work. This agency was the primary funder of our just completed “Trail Blazers” initiative, which connected hundreds of afterschool youths to outdoor recreation here in Rockbridge.
Now in her second year at Boxerwood, Ginny, a recent WLU grad, is also Boxerwood’s COREworks carbon offset coordinator. “I’m grateful for our friends at NOAA who funded this experience,” she said, “including offsetting my travel with an offset from COREworks!”
