Kaitlin Shurts making a difference in human and ecological communities

2015 Mar 9

Batavia, Ohio, resident Kaitlin Shurts, a graduate student in the Global Field Program (GFP) from Miami University's Project Dragonfly, has been awarded a Community Engagement badge from the university for making a difference in human and ecological communities. As part of the GFP, students like Shurts apply the tools of conservation science and advance the tenets central to the master's degree: inquiry, community and voice.

Through her Conservation Science & Community course project entitled "Mapping the Blueprints of an Outdoor Classroom in Secondary Science Education to Foster Inquiry and Environmental Consciousness in Children ," Shurts created two maps, one map will show the current use of the green space around the high school for lessons and the second map, a landscape map, will be used to identify the faculty and students top 12 outdoor classroom components through an outdoor classroom survey . Shurts is a biology teacher at Amelia High School.

As part of her master's program coursework, Shurts studied desert and marine ecosystems on the Baja peninsula. Study sites include 13 countries throughout Africa, Asia, Australia and the Americas.

The GFP master's degree is designed for educators and other professionals from all disciplines and settings who are interested in working collaboratively to bring about change in local and global contexts. Applicants can be from anywhere in the United States or abroad. To learn more about the GFP, visit http://gfp.miamioh.edu/.

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