Hello from North Carolina!  My name is Renee Strnad, and I am so honored that Bora has asked me to team up with Sarah Johnson to co-moderate the Guidelines for Excellence eePRO group. I look forward to sharing some of the ways the Guidelines have been used, hear your ideas, and have other discussions around these great materials as we continue to grow the professionalism of the EE field.

I am the Environmental Educator for Extension Forestry at North Carolina State University, and have been here for over 18 years! As an Extension Associate, I have responsibilities to promote environmental education across the state, which allows me considerable flexibility in projects and programs.  One of the key reasons I became a member of the Guidelines Trainer Bureau over 10 years ago was to use the materials when I talked about EE to a wide variety of groups statewide. I hope to share some of those stories with you going forward including using the Guidelines to help inform our state social studies standards, infusing them into early childhood EE workshops, and helping our state geology office develop stronger outreach programs.

When I am not knee-deep in Guidelines work, you will find me promoting Project Learning Tree curriculum as North Carolina's PLT program coordinator. I am also working with faculty in the College of Natural Resources and the College of Education to develop an interdisciplinary EE minor for NC State students. The minor program is heavily based on North Carolina’s EE Certification Program, and it has been fun to help develop and teach some of the new courses. I also serve on the state’s EE Certification Program committee, and we are continually referring to the Guidelines for Professional Development of Environmental Educators and the Materials Guidelines to ensure our program is top notch. I am a proud alumna of our state EE certification program, and enjoy using my time at the NAAEE conferences to earn my continuing education hours to keep my certification current!

I have also served on the board of the Environmental Educators of North Carolina; first through a presidential term, and then as treasurer. I am currently serving on North Carolina’s ee360 leadership team and we have made incredible strides to build the capacity of our organization by hiring our first paid staff (and Executive Director), and we are now working on strategies to grow equity, diversity, and inclusivity of EE across the state.

I look forward to learning and sharing from you all through eePRO, and hopefully in person, too! Please do not hesitate to post questions, resources, ideas, and celebrations to share with us all here.

Renee Strnad
renee_strnad@ncsu.edu