Originally from Quarryvile, Penn. (better known as Amish country), Wendy Miller spent a lot of time exploring the outdoors and attending nature camps — “like the ones I teach now,” she says. She is the education program manager at Sharon Audubon Center, and was recently recognized as the COEEA (CT Outdoor and Environmental Education Association) 2021 Environmental Educator of the Year. It’s not hard to see why: her programs are imaginative and used as school curriculum in and outside the state. Her enthusiasm for what she does is palpable.

After I got my BA in Wildlife and Fisher Science form Penn State, I was offered a three-month internship at Sharon Audubon. Then I stayed on for an environmental education position. After that three months, I was invited for another three. I did four, three-month internships, and at the end of the year, they created a full-time position just for me: Wildlife Rehabilitation and Outreach Coordinator. Three months turned into 24 years!

I oversaw the rehab clinic, built up the program, and got licensed as a rehabilitator. I did that up until I got pregnant with my first son and was concerned about being around diseased animals. I moved into the education aspect, focusing on teaching at schools and running the center’s summer camps. I also played the role of office manager and ran (and still run) the store, and was interim center director for six months. I’ve kind of done everything except for caretaker.

The Educator of the Year award seems a little bit more special this year because of all the circumstances we were under. Teachers scrambled to begin a new world of online teaching and I wanted to help, especially when so many of those teachers supported our Center programs year after year, and now all end-of-the-year field trips and special programs were halted. I immediately went to work, from my own home since our Center had been shut down, creating several new programs and adapting old programs to accommodate individual students in their new home school settings. I made the slides and programs as interactive as possible, to allow the kids to be engaged the entire time and not just sitting staring at a screen. In the spring and fall of 2020, I taught 29 virtual school and scout programs, reaching over 1800 kids and over 250 adults.  I taught two additional in-person, outdoor socially distanced programs in school courtyards as well. 

Over the summer, I partnered with 11 local Parks & Rec departments and created five different Nature Scavenger Hunts that were sent to participating families in those communities over four weeks. They would complete the hunts by going outside and identifying birds, insects, habitats, and more and submit them for prizes.

To replace Kids Day in the fall we held a Pumpkin Trail. People were invited to carve/decorate pumpkins and drop them off at our Center. Those pumpkins were placed along a trail for visitors to come see.  

Also last spring my nine-year-old son and I created a series called “Nature Tidbits- Nature for Kids by Kids,” in order to get kids outside away from screens and exploring their own backyards. We recorded 20 diff episodes of Nature Tidbits posted on the Center’s Facebook page every Friday. They were used by teachers in classroom around the local area and even in other states as part of their science curriculum. 

I love teaching, I love being in the classrooms with the teachers and the kids, and I love leading a group of children out into the woods or a field or to the pond for an exploration. It’s hard not being there in person with the kids, but I’ve tried to bring that same experience to them as best as I can via computer. If I can make them feel, even if for a minute, that they are not looking at a Smartboard, but rather immersed in nature, excited about nature, then I am succeeding. 

All photos courtesy Wendy Miller

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The Rural We