People

For three years I facilitated two of the four WI Registry Nature-Based Early Childhood Education Credential courses at UW-Whitewater. Prior to COVID, I created the Wonder Bugs Preschool Program (child and adult program) and implemented the Nature Preschool at Aldo Leopold Nature Center.

Tina Harte Ballinger is a Project Support Specialist for the NASA Langley Science Directorate's Education Team. She is also the founder and Project Manager for the NASA GLOBE Goes to Camp Project providing informal outdoor environmental education opportunities to communities across the United States. She has over 30 years of experience in STEAM based instruction and curriculum development with a M.S. in Secondary Science Education from the Univeristy of Tennessee at Martin with an emphasis in Geoscience.  

Megan Fink serves as the Partnerships & Policy Manager for the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE). Working in the field of Environmental Education for over a decade, Megan brings a robust, place-based, outdoor education background to the NAAEE team. She has built enduring working relationships across the Chesapeake Bay watershed and the Mid-Atlantic region. As a graduate of Virginia Tech with a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Science and Biology, Megan began her career as an Environmental Educator at the North Carolina Aquariums before joining the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) in 2011. Through several program management positions with CBF she led students, teachers, school administrators, and environmental professionals on ecological, cultural, and historical investigations of the Bay. She also managed a statewide leadership program for high school students, teaching them how to become environmental advocates at the local, regional, and national levels.

Megan earned an Executive Master of Natural Resources from Virginia Tech’s Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability in 2020. In 2022-23, she served as Education Director for the Annapolis Maritime Museum & Park, supervising 15 Environmental Education Programs and expanding their reach to 14,000 participants annually. She also initiated and managed a project to launch a brand-new, nature-based preschool and served on the Maryland State Department of Education’s Workgroup to develop statewide Outdoor Preschool licensing standards. 

Throughout her career, Megan has designed programs that inspire participants to act on behalf of their local natural resources and enhance people’s understanding of and connection to the natural world through compelling environmental education experiences. In her spare time, she can often be found hiking, gardening, paddling, and spending time with her loved ones, including her dog, Ruby, splashing around the Bay watershed!

I am a 6th grade science teacher for Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS). We explore chemistry, our extreme planet, the human body, and ecosystems.

Environmental scientist, educator, course designer, trainer and mentor.

Lindsey Kirkland (she/her) is an environmental education leader, facilitator, and program manager dedicated to connecting people, ideas, and action. Most recently at Climate Generation, she designed and led professional learning experiences for a national network of educators, creating spaces where collaboration, curiosity, and community drive meaningful impact. With a background in environmental research, climate education, coalition-building, and program strategy, Lindsey brings people together across organizations to strengthen practice and advance collective goals. She believes learning is most powerful when it is participatory, grounded in real-world contexts and research, and rooted in care for both people and place.

I have been teaching environmental science for about 7 years now. I have a love for our environmental and I want to try to pass that on to students.

Being raised on a Pennsylvania farm near Lake Erie, Rhonda developed a deep connection to land and water. She earned a BS and MEd from Penn State University and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction with an environmental focus from UNC Wilmington, where she now teaches. Rhonda is also a freelance environmental journalist in the Wilmington, NC coastal region. Her work has appeared in Black Warrior Review, American Submariner, Coastal Review, storySouth, among others. A former Brauer Fellow, she was a semifinalist for North Carolina Literary Review’s 2024 Alex Albright CNF Prize. She is working on a memoir exploring brain injury and the healing power of trees. With five grown children, Rhonda, her beloved, and their dog savor sunrise beach walks.

A Tropical Rainforest educator for 15 years, after 5 visits to Neo Tropical Rainforests, I decided to commission a  new book; A Tropical Rainforest Primer. The book is based on the outline of the one hour presentations that I gave to thousands of school students of all grade levels.

A Tropical Rainforest Primer is available on Amazon presently, and will be on other major platforms soon. An essential book for most environmental science curricula that include the study of Tropical Rainforests.