I was born and grew up in Russia. The way of life was different that time and though I lived in the city we grew our own food, foraged the woods for mushrooms and berries and fished and I enjoyed every moment of it.

When my family moved to the US in 1998 to Asheville NC I was stunned by the nature around me. Every weekend I explored another mountain, a waterfall or a stream. When I started working for Buncombe County Schools in 2011 I wanted to share my love of nature with my students, but at that time the emphasis was on digital education and I didn't have any environmental education teaching knowledge, strategies or experiences to make it part of my lessons. Instead, I organized a Saturday hiking club that was successful for 3 years. Teachers, students and parents had fun being outdoors together.

In 2015 I transferred to a different school Charles C. Bell Elementary where I found my home. This is a small school in the outskirts of Asheville with very strong community ties.  Though it is a traditional public elementary school, I am very lucky that my principal understands the importance of hands-on learning and getting the kids outdoors. Four years ago I began teaching 5th grade and the first thing I did was to secure a grant from GoOutdoors NC to fund our partnership with Muddy Sneakers, a NC non-profit organization that uses outdoors as a classroom extension. My student had four meaningful lessons in the woods that was the highlight of the year. It was a learning experience for me as well. I watched the instructors and the strategies they had, I took notes on the activities and afterwards, I would think of how I could incorporate similar activities to teach a different topic or a standard. I still had a lot to learn. My goal was to use the outdoors as a natural extension of my classroom for expeditionary learning and hands-on experiences.

I knew I needed professional development to help me be successful. I began taking online seminars "School Backyard Teachers" with Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont. In August 2025 I participated at their Teacher Escape Experience that gave me plenty of field practice focused on place-based educational practices. I am planning to do it this summer as well. In 2025-26 I was admitted into the program Schools in Parks with NC State Parks. I was exposed to a variety of outside activities that I will implement in my classroom and my students got to take two free field trips to Lake James State Park.

In our school, my grade level is famous for taking multiple field trips. Only this year we have been to Cherokee living Village, Grandfather Mountain, Bent Creek Educational Forest, Asheville Arboretum and Mount Mitchell. We had a visit from a Great Smoky Mountain Park ranger and a Blue Ridge Parkway ranger. We participate in the Adopt-A-Cow program, have our own garden and currently have six adorable chicks in my classroom with the plan to build a chicken run and have our own eggs in the future. It's all about sustainability!

The big project we had in Math this year was Food Waste in our school. Every day for 2 week we weighted the amount of food our grade level throws away in the cafeteria, the amount of milk that is poured down and the amount of fruits and vegetables we don't eat as part of our free snack. We collected the data, made graphs and created the presentation for the whole school. The results were shocking and eye-opening. We brainstormed some ideas of how we can minimize the waste and as part of the solution we started donating unwanted fruits and veggies to the locan barn animal shelter "Animal Haven". I hope that this project was meaningful to many students and will change their habits. They are the future of the world and if they grow environmentally responsible, the world has a future!

I would like to continue my environmental education to give others knowledge, skills and motivation to improve environmental conditions on our planet and empower them to become better citizens