Student Shares Appreciation of Nature through Botany Courses
Posted in Learning Experiences, People on June 3 2009, by Plant Talk
Earns Certificate to Be Awarded at Weekend Ceremony
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Stephan Chenault is Director of Science Development. |
This Sunday I will receive my Continuing Education Certificate in Botany. I enrolled in the program soon after joining the Garden’s staff, in August 1998. My decision to study botany was based on a love of nature that dates from my childhood. I still remember my mother taking me on a walk in the woods around Lake George at the age of three and how much I appreciated and was fascinated by acorns, oak leaves, chipmunks, and mushrooms. My goal in pursuing the Botany Certificate was to gain more knowledge of plant life and the natural world so that I would have a key to turn other people on to the natural world.
My past experiences in nature education have been as a counselor and teacher at a camp in New Hampshire. Helping children encounter and enjoy the environment through hikes, nature walks, aquarium- and terrarium-building, gardening, and art has been one of my most rewarding vocations. Later, as a volunteer activist in the Sierra Club, the country’s largest environmental organization, I would participate and help lead hikes with my activist collaborators. Many of these volunteer partners switched careers and became full-time professional environmental leaders, and I, myself, switched careers to take on a position in science fundraising for The New York Botanical Garden.
The knowledge I have gained from being a student in the Continuing Education program has been very helpful to me in understanding the Garden’s scientific programs and describing them to potential donors in the philanthropic community.