Topics Related to Environmentally Speaking

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.
The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality is launching a new high school curriculum focused on air quality in North Carolina.

The It’s Our Air! program will officially launch April 26 in a ceremony at the Nature Research Center in downtown Raleigh.
NC GreenTravel Initiative is North Carolina’s sustainable tourism recognition program that assists travel-oriented businesses by helping them to improve their brand by conserving natural resources, protecting the state’s environment and attracting more visitors to our state.

The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality is working with N.C. State University to prepare a new generation of environmental educators.

Beginning this 2017-2018 academic year, the N.C. State College of Natural Resources will partner with the N.C. State College of Education to offer two courses in environmental education--Environmental Education Teaching Methods and Environmental Education in Practice.
By: Jamie Kritzer 

One of our most important jobs in the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality is educating the next generation to appreciate and protect the environment.

“And if you’re gonna educate children, you better bring your ‘A’ game,” says DEQ Secretary Michael Regan.

So for this year’s Read Across America celebration, staff with the Department of Environmental Quality used their creative genius to design an event that the students and teachers at Barwell Road Elementary in Raleigh will likely not soon forget.