TEACHERS AND NON-FORMAL EDUCATORS are invited to register for free training offered at the annual Clinch River Environmental Education Symposium set for Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025 at the UVA Wise Oxbow Center in St. Paul, Virginia. Deadline to register is Aug. 22.  Register by sending an email to creec.committee@gmail.com. In the email, include name, contact phone number, email address, school system and department.

The symposium will include a light breakfast and lunch is on your own. Two laptops will be given as door prizes at the end of the day. Each participant will receive a certificate for CEUs.

The Symposium will open with a keynote from Claiborne Woodall of the Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Division of Natural Heritage. He will talk about land conservation and natural areas.

Following Woodall’s presentation, attendees will break into groups and rotate between four stations. The station presenters include Sally Entrekin of Virginia Tech speaking about salinity impacts in Southwest Virginia Waterways and Wally Smith, professor at UVA Wise, talking about using game cameras in K-12 classrooms. 

Additional presenters are Megan Roark of the High Knob Destination Center, who will share tools for wildlife interpretation, and Chrissy Hall of UVA Wise whose topic is geology as a window into climate history.

This program is funded by the Virginia Department of Forestry, UVA Wise and the Clinch River Valley Initiative. This annual symposium is organized by the Clinch River Valley Initiative Environmental Education Team and Upper Tennessee River Roundtable, a watershed nonprofit that implements projects to improve water quality of the Clinch, Powell and Holston rivers that flow to Tennessee.  

###