A warm welcome to our 22 new Population Education trainers! This past weekend, we hosted a “train the trainer” Leadership Institute at the beautiful Hershey Lodge in Hershey, PA. It was a great day full of meaningful conversations, thoughtful questions and collaboration between like-minded colleagues.
Educators traveled from North Carolina, West Virginia, Maryland, and the reaches of Pennsylvania to become trained in leading Population Ed workshops in their local areas. Over the course of the day, they participated in some of our most popular activities, like Panther Hunt and Food for Thought, solidified their knowledge of PopEd workshops by taking part in two “Pop Quizzes” and discussed with peers how to answer difficult population related questions.
In addition to gaining more in-depth knowledge on population issues and PopEd lessons, participants left with ideas for how and where to share Population Ed resources with educators in their areas. In fact, many already have plans for the coming months and workshops are lined up for pre-service students at Lock Haven University and La Roche College, for current teachers at the Pennsylvania Association for Gifted Educators and the Laurel Highlands Math Teachers conferences, and for environmental educators at the Mid-Atlantic Marine Education conference.
We are fortunate to have such dedicated volunteers representing our program around the mid-Atlantic. With their energy and expertise, we will be able to significantly increase our impact and get PopEd resources in the hands of many more educators!