Tapping My Environmental Education Days & Visited the Kellogg Center in Derby, Connecticut, to Witness Their Great Work

Earlier this year, I began investigating the incredible work I did in KY through KIESD and remembered being trained with the federal program Project WILD and Project Wet. I wondered if Connecticut had trained facilitators and learned of Susan Quincy of the Kellogg Environmental Center and reached out. Although there wasn't a free second in July/August to meet with her, I found time yesterday morning, ironically the day after the passing of Wendell Berry, Kentucky poet, who I've used to springboard many projects throughout the year. 

The facility was nice and only 9 miles from my house. It is a great, spacious center with incredible leadership by Susan who works with teachers and youth in the same I do. I pitched an idea about possible collaborations and partnerships, of which she was commendable. We talked about Write Out '26  and planned out possibilities between her network and that of CWP. We shall see what might come of it, as I'm channeling the great work of Reading Landscapes & Writing Nature with Weir Farm National Historical Park and the last two years of collaboration with the Center of Climate, Coastal, and Marine Studies on campus. Fingers crossed that we might pull something off. 

There were downpours in CT in the morning, and I didn't know if I'd make it, more comfortable on my front porch doing digital work, then going out-of-home in search of an adventure. I'm glad I did, because now the cogs in my aging brain began working...always in support of teachers and definitely in support of youth. 

I also began thinking of Wendell Berry's influence on my fledgling brain and the project I did in Kentucky while student teaching through KIESD and the Louisville Writing Project. At the time, I was working on a 2nd Masters Thesis where his writing was central to my pitch for ecological literacy (of course, enthralled by the writing of David Orr at Oberlin College). Pulling books off the shelf, I came across one poem, Thirty More Years, and I couldn't help but think that it was 30 years ago when I did the Pillar of Poetry in connection with Earth Day at the Louisville Zoo. My 10th grade students at the time were instrumental to the work, and I put together an anthology of their writing with the grant money. I even received an award from the City of Louisville because of the work. 

One of my intern jobs was to design the Beargrass Creek road signs that are throughout the Louisville watershed and I was gifted one of those road signs as a gift when I left the Nature Center and took a full-time job at Brown. 

I'm always channeling my childhood along lakes of CNY and the St. Lawrence River, always thankful for having an informal introduction to outdoor education, simply because I had relatives who lived along water. Our words can never capture the beauty of the outdoors (as we know with Whitman and others, we can try to figure out the humanity alongside it. 

I will always cherish my collection of Berry poems and will continue to live life with a node in his direction. 30 years ago, I was doing similar work and I'm thankful to still be able to do it today.