Kenan Fellows Program Awarded Merck Foundation Grant to Expand Environmental Education Initiatives in the Triangle

RALEIGH  — The Kenan Fellows Program for Teacher Leadership (KFP) at NC State University is pleased to announce that it has received a $25,000 grant from the Merck Foundation to grow and sustain its environmental education professional development programs in the Triangle area.

This is the second year that the Merck Foundation has supported the KFP in its efforts to impact educators and their students by offering professional learning opportunities that focus on sustainability initiatives across the state. Last year, a cohort of 25 educators from Durham Public Schools (DPS) completed a cross-curricular professional development series on food and the environment.

This year’s program includes 21 educators from DPS, Wake County Public Schools (WCPSS), and Orange County Schools. The 2022 Mountain to the Sea Scholars will spend a semester completing a series of in-person and online professional development sessions facilitated by Linda Dion, who teaches in Wake County and Robin Bulleri, an educator in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. Both Dion and Bulleri are KFP alumni.

The workshops include a series of site visits that will allow the Scholars to learn first-hand from field experts on a variety of water conservation issues affecting North Carolina from wetland restoration in the mountains to aquaculture on the coast. KFP has partnered with the US Army Corps of Engineers at Jordan Lake Dam, the Walnut Creek Wetland Center, Conserving Carolina and the NC Carolina Coastal Federation to provide interactive learning experiences that the Scholars will translate into relevant lessons to use in their classrooms and share with other educators. The Scholars will receive a $100 stipend upon completion of the program. Scholars are listed by school district below.

2022 Mountains to the Sea Scholars