Summer 2026 I created and ran a gardening program at the behavioral health school I work at. We did a vegetable and herb garden and the students journaled every week about a specific plant they were interested in. This helped them to connect with the garden and become more engaged in their local environments. I have also taken several courses involving the local ecosystem, as I live within the Chesapeake Watershed, so I was able to bring local ecology into the mix. Doing classwork where we studied sustainability and pollution was also helpful because the lcoation of the school is in a notoriously polluted coal mining area. Bringing in knowledge about the area's environmental history was helpful for understanding the social and cultural differences that affect perspective and learning habits. Ive also had the opportunity to go abroad to New Zealand and look at their sustainability and natural resource systems.