| Julie Love reads to students from books which enhance outdoor education. |
Over the past two years numerous teachers from Emery County and Pinnacle Canyon Academy have made the commitment to become trained and certified in the realm of outdoor/experiential education.
The Bioregional Outdoor Education Project, fostered by the Four Corners School of Outdoor Education of Monticello has worked with teachers in Carbon and Emery counties to make them highly effective outdoor educators. The BioregionaI Outdoor Eduction Project trains a diverse population of teachers in the diverse rural areas of the Colorado Plateau in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.
BOEP is designed to promote understanding and appreciation of the natural and cultural history of the Colorado Plateau through core-based, interdisciplinary, experiential curricula offered through a roving teacher education and mentoring system.
Teachers from Emery and Carbon counties that became a part of this project were given two years to complete a portfolio that provided them with the certification of an outdoor educator. This certification program known as TOEC provides a quality certification program with a meaningful framework to those wishing to enhance their skills in teaching about an personal knowledge of the Colorado Plateau Bioregion. By completing this certification program, teachers demonstrated their commitment to outdoor education on, and about, the Colorado Plateau.
Teachers who have completed this certification are: Jan Hanson and Sandra Jeffs from Cottonwood Elementary; Stewart Behling, Leona Behling and LuAnn Sorensen from Ferron Elementary; Marty Prettyman from Castle Dale Elementary; Julie Love, Collette Clement, DeWayne Fowler, Allen Livingston and Carolee Larsen from Huntington Elementary; Pam Hansen and Maryella Fowler from Cleveland Elementary; Steve Lasslo, Lee Averett, Dina Wise, Brenda Rawson and Del Funk from Pinnacle Canyon Academy; and Sky Dinkins from Green River Community Center.
For more information on this project search: www.boep.org or contact Trish Hedin, Utah Regional Coordinator for BOEP thedin@boep.org.