Camille Burns
Camille started at Prescott Farm as an intern during the winter of
2011 while earning her M.Ed. at Antioch University New England, and by
April 2012 had been hired as a full-time environmental educator.
At the farm she helps implement their camp programs, and during the school
year spends approximately 300 hours at Alton and Gilmanton Schools as a
Naturalist- in-the-Classroom (CO-SEED model). She also leads public
programs at Prescott Farm year-round.
Her coworker explains that, for “Gilmanton and Alton schools, in addition
to regularly working with students (K-8) on a variety of topics, [she] has
developed and led some special and memorable longer-term projects. […] She
is organizing a garden club to oversee the small school gardens she worked
with the QUEST (gifted & talented) students to create an “Insect Hotel” out
of upcycled and found natural materials to create habitat for pollinators
and other beneficial insects.” And in 2012, she helped Alton students not
only to get outdoors, but to get to know their local history, researching,
connecting with community members and visiting sites around town in order
to create a poetry guide to the area.
An administrator who works with Camille writes that, “She creates
unforgettable experiences for [the kids] that will carry forward in the way
they think, learn and act. With our staff she also creates a level of
comfort that allows even our most hesitant staff members to take a leap
forward and learn how to use the environment, place-based learning and
experiential education to take their regular curriculum standards and turn
them into something magical.”
Especially this year, as we explore how to incorporate Environmental Ed in
a variety of curriculums and classrooms, it is clear that Camille Burns is
a leader in the field and extremely deserving of the NHEE Elementary
Educator Award.