Topics Related to Environmentally Speaking

Secretary Michael Regan recently met with fourth grade students visiting Raleigh from Salisbury Academy in Salisbury, NC. Students, their teacher and parent chaperones arrived by train and toured the State Capitol, the Museum of History, the General Assembly, the Museum of Natural Sciences and the Executive Mansion. Their final stop was the Department of Environmental Quality’s Green Square building for a visit with Secretary Regan.

The N.C. Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs invites you to take part in a nationwide effort to connect children to the natural world.

The Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs is offering several engaging and in some cases “spooky,” topics for their fall lunchtime speaker series.

With a nod to the season, October’s sessions include “Soring Talons of Death,” “Oddities from the Vault,” “Our Mysterious Night Flyers,” “Spooky Spiders” and “Howling Misconceptions.” Tomorrow’s talk, “Ghosts Forest of the Sounds” with Marcelo Ardon Sayao of N.C. State University, will feature a unique citizen science project to investigate the changing shorelines of North Carolina.

Mandy Nix is a nonformal educator who had a very busy year. In addition to working in several seasonal positions, Nix used her training and experiences to complete her N.C. Environmental Education Certification.

More than a Helping Hand

For Division of Marine Fisheries staff, helping a co-worker is a daily occurrence, from holding a door for someone carrying a load to staying late to help meet a deadline.

On March 14, one employee gave more than a helping hand when Cindi Hamilton (pictured on the left) donated a kidney to Carol Littrell (pictured on the right).

DEQ staff from the Secretary’s office and from the Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs joined Bee Downtown Founder and CEO Leigh-Kathryn Bonner last Wednesday for an up-close and hands-on tour of the company’s community apiary at NCSU Centennial Campus. 

The Department of Environmental Quality’s Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs and the N.C. Public Schools Science Section have coauthored an article that touts the unique collaboration between the two agencies to unite formal and informal educators in the state. The article, Collaboration + Good Coffee = Connected Science Learning Success was published in the spring edition of the Connected Science Learning journal, a publication of the National Science Teachers Association and the Association of Science-Technology Centers.

The DEQ Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs took their Lunchtime Discovery Series to the Archdale Building recently to show DEQ and other state employees the benefits of composting. The workshop was held outside on the Halifax Mall where a small composting program has been in place since 2012.

The Asheville Regional Office and 14 additional Division of Air Quality employees were honored June 14 as DAQ Team of the Year for efforts related to air impacts from wildfires that consumed more than 80,000 acres of state and federal forest land in November.

With three nominations detailing his extraordinary service in 2016, Tim Skelding has been named Division of Air Quality Employee of the Year.

Skelding, an environmental specialist with the Raleigh Regional Office, was honored by colleagues during the division’s annual appreciation event Wednesday at the N.C. Museum of History. He has worked at DAQ since 2003.