Comments & Photographs from the 2009 Institute

From Past Participants

"The Audubon Institute is, by far, the best learning experience I have been involved with in sixteen years of teaching. The instructors were experts in the field, the fieldtrips were incredible, and I established long lasting friendships among my colleagues. I highly recommend this institute."
Barbara Curry, The Bloomington Graduation School

"Picturing John James Audubon Institute 2009 was a wonderful interdisciplinary experience that enriched my teaching as well as helping me to better mentor new teachers. It continues to intellectually contribute to all work that I do.”
Anne F. Berlin, Educator and Writer; Teacher, Rocky View Elementary School, Gallup, New Mexico; Volunteer-Vegetation Projects National Park Service at the Grand Canyon

“I recently completed the Hornet Observatory at Randolph Howell Elementary School in Columbia, TN. The observatory has benches for a whole classroom to sit outside and observe two different bird feeding stations. Thirty student binoculars and thirty ‘Birds of Tennessee’ books were purchased, too. An Eagle scout finished the landscaping, planting and construction of a cedar storage box (for the bird seed). The list of community donors and volunteers is expansive, but all told (not including the ongoing cost of bird seed), this was over a $3,000 project. The month at IU was one of the most significant months of my adult life. I learned and experienced more in that month than I ever thought possible. Audubon's life created the perfect combination of American history, art, literature and study of nature/science as well as the exploration of the cultural influences unique to being ‘American’ during the formation of our cultural identity post Revolutionary War. The seminar inspired me to become more involved in my own local conservation groups as well as our local Audubon society. Finally, my current class, as well as last year's class, has been pen-pal writing to classes in New Mexico thanks to the connections I made with other teachers at the seminar.”
Stephanie Sparks-Newland, 4th Grade Teacher, Spring Hill Elementary School, Maury County School System, Tennessee

“I’m on my second year of keeping an environmental focus in my six AP English Language and Composition classes after attending the Audubon Institute. The first year out I simply morphed my AP English Language class to include nature-inspired prompts which was not difficult. One of Scott Russell Sanders’s essays has even appeared on a previous AP test. My students were forced to go outside to keep their own nature journals. They took on an environmental cause for their research project. Instead of a research paper, they pulled together a media kit for an environmental group and took on the role of a spokesperson for the group and presented their research in the culminating public speaking assignment. Additionally, I won a $2,500 grant for class sets of John James Audubon: Writings and Drawings and American Earth. Our 2009-2010 annual Walton Writers’ Night focused on nature inspired writings from submission from all English students who shared the stage with Janisse Ray, who read from her book, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood. As a result of the Gulf disaster, I am tweaking the curriculum this year to ‘Ethics and the Environment.’ So, the excitement and knowledge shared during our Institute continues to be a part of my life and my students’ lives. On a personal note, I spent a week in Vermont at the Wildbranch Writing Workshop with Scott Russell Sanders and focused on some nature writing of my own.”
Kelly Bryan, AP English Teacher, George Walton Comprehensive High School, Marietta, Georgia

“I am teaching American Literature this year, and my participation in the institute completely changed my thinking about how to best teach 10th grade American Lit. I decided to take a thematic approach around the idea of wilderness; my students have responded with a fair degree of enthusiasm. I have used Audubon’s biography of the golden eagle—dramatic enough for 15-year-old girls and gruesome enough for 15-year-old boys—along with your article in the New Literary History of America and the Drawn from Nature DVD. And, of course, we have been down to our local urban creek to observe and write about birds and nature in general. Our students here in Denver (and elsewhere, I suspect) tend to resist using precise, evocative language in their writing, but the pieces they’ve produced modeled on Audubon have been a vehicle for growth in that area. We’ve moved on the contemporary Western writers, but Audubon’s eagle remains a touchstone. On a personal level, I now have a backyard birdfeeder, host to hundreds of house sparrows, for which my cats are extremely grateful.”
Dr. Karen Fernandez, English Teacher, Denver Center for International Studies