Bay Backpack

During her tenure at Bay Backpack, Krissy participated in many volunteer opportunities. At this event she helped the National Aquarium in Baltimore plant marsh grass on Barren Island in the Chesapeake Bay

In the beginning, I had my doubts that Bay Backpack would ever get its feet off the ground.  But time would prove that persistence and a good idea could overcome any odds.  Just look how far the Backpack community has come. Last year, 13,990 visitors accessed the site from 106 countries.  I guess you could say Backpack has gone international.

Backpack promotes a style of teaching that is the way education should be.  Education should be about student exploration, investigation, and action.  It should expose students to the environment, not separate them from it.  It should open a forum to discuss real world issues in the classroom.

But often teachers feel constrained by their pacing guides, standards of learning, and textbooks. They feel they have neither the time nor the resources to get their students outside. But Backpack has shown us that educators, especially K-12 teachers, can succeed at incorporating outdoor learning into their curricula.  We know this because of the inspiration stories told through the School Spotlight; personal tales of how teachers got their projects off the ground.

Stories like that of Cynthia Walsh, who was inspired to create an outdoor classroom at her school after she attended a professional development workshop on box turtle monitoring. Or Carl Rollins whose organization helped provide 40,000 DC students with fresh, local berries, and greens. Or Barbara Shaughnessy, who sparked a $6 million renovation that transformed her school’s straggly courtyard into an outdoor learning environment with “classroom” spaces (from physical education to music) that connect students to the outside.

In urban, suburban, and rural communities everywhere untapped opportunities abound.  Cynthia, Carl, and Barbara prove that with a little creativity, persistence, and outside of the box thinking success is possible anywhere. The thing that makes their stories different is they were empowered to be leaders in their communities. They took the first and often hardest step. Instead of fear they felt empowerment.  Instead of challenges they saw opportunities. They lit the spark at their school and shared their story with their peers and the Backpack community.

Their spark may serve as a light to inspire others to do the same. So take the time this year, in 2011, to think creatively, keep your irons in the fire, and build on the success of others to create your own story.  Then inspire others by sharing your story with anyone who will listen. If you have a story you think will inspire others, email Sarah and get your story posted on Backpack.

Peyton Robertson, the director of NOAA's Chesapeake Bay Office, kicked off Bay Backpack’s launch event in 2010 by announcing the official launch of the website.

Mike Land from the National Park Service demonstrated the different features found on Bay Backpack’s at the launch event.

An impressive number of people attended the Bay Backpack launch event at the Annapolis Maritime Museum.

Upon beginning my job with the Chesapeake Bay Program, there was something in the back of my mind that I would have loved to work on a website for students about the Chesapeake Bay. Little did I know that something similar was already in the works.

When Krissy approached me and told me about this project, I was in love with her concept for Bay Backpack. I saw the development along the way, got to proofread some of the content for her, and saw my role in the website increasing as time went on. Still, I didn’t realize how much Backpack would come to consume my work life.

I remember when Krissy asked me to produce an info sheet for her as marketing materials. I was so psyched to have something creative and fun to work on – to design it completely and to try to “sell” this amazing website. I also helped Krissy with the planning of the launch event for Bay Backpack, held at the end of January last year. Seeing my flier out on the table with the Backpack pencils, notepads, flower seeds and other brochures was pretty cool.

But the coolest thing was seeing how many people showed up for the launch of this great new resource. Watching as teachers came up to Krissy to talk to her about this admirable project was enlightening. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell that what we’re doing is making a difference. But this event, coupled with the feedback we get on the site, proves that we really are. I was so proud of Krissy when I was observing this event, and so proud to be a small part of the Backpack family.

My involvement continued after the site officially launched, mainly as a proofreader for my colleague. But when it became obvious that there was going to be a gap between Krissy leaving her position to pursue her Ph.D. and someone being hired as her replacement, I saw that my role would have to increase.

Krissy asked Kristin and I to manage the site, tag-teaming the blogging, website content and social networking aspects of the job. I didn’t realize what a hard job it could sometimes be to create content for the site. Convincing people to be guest bloggers (and follow through with it) is harder than you may think. Getting people to read the blog posts is even harder – but Kristin took care of that for me with her ever-increasing Twitter proficiency!

At first, I was intimidated by the tasks. But soon, I was thriving under the deadlines. Having a solid weekly deadline got me back to my journalism roots, whether I was the writer or the editor. I loved getting emails from people wanting to contribute to the blog. I loved reading about their experiences and being able to help them share them with a broader audience. I loved the community that the site provided, the community that took me in without hesitation.

When our new staffer was hired, I felt a mixture of sadness and relief. I would no longer have to be rushing to get something ready for a Monday morning post if I didn’t have anything at 2 p.m. on Friday. But I would also be losing a lot of my responsibility and sense of community in this job.

I am confident that Sarah is going to continue to take Backpack on a great journey, and I’m looking forward to continuing to help out where I can.

The first year of Backpack has been a great learning experience for me, and I can’t wait to see where it’s headed in its second year. One thing is for sure – we couldn’t have gotten it to its second year without all of you, so thank you! For reading, for contributing and for just wanting to educate about the environment! Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you.

Kristin Foringer helped manage Bay Backpack's Twitter and Facebook accounts during 2010.

When Lindsay and I were approached with the opportunity to work on Bay Backpack I was immediately excited and ready to get started as soon as possible. I had attended the launch event for the website in January 2010, and was so impressed with how much work Krissy had put into creating this database. Now, I would have a chance to help Krissy’s project continue by spreading the word about Bay Backpack everywhere I could.

During my time helping with Bay Backpack, I mostly handled the Twitter and Facebook accounts. I also promoted Bay Backpack at conferences I attended (see guerilla-marketing blog post). Working on the site gave me a lot of experience in a field that I am newly interested in, environmental communications. Managing the social media platforms for Backpack allowed me to learn first hand how useful they can be for marketing a product and how quickly information can spread through them. It was always rewarding when I was able to have information I had sent out duplicated and republished by other Twitter and Facebook users. This let me know that what Bay Backpack was providing was important to people and they were genuinely interested in using the site.

During the time that I have been involved with Bay Backpack, I have always received a lot of great feedback when I talked to teachers and environmental educators about the site. When I went to the North American Association for Environmental Educators (NAAEE) conference in Buffalo, NY, I talked to so many educators who were thrilled by the fact that there was a website that compiled environmental education resources. Most of them did not even live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, but knew that any of the lessons and activities on the site could be adapted to apply to any watershed. Many of these educators were so interested in the site that they wrote blogs that you may have read.

I have really enjoyed working on Bay Backpack. It has really given me a lot of experience in a field that I hope to enter into in the future. More importantly, it gave me an opportunity to work on something that I know can have a major impact on the education of our youth and the health of the Chesapeake Bay. My hope is that Bay Backpack continues to grow in the coming years and is utilized by teachers and environmental educators throughout the watershed, especially in Maryland, where it can be a great tool for teachers to help fulfill the new environmental education requirements.

Bay Backpack promotional materials were distributed at the website’s launch event, January 28, 2010

As Bay Backpack’s one-year anniversary approaches, my first year at Bay Backpack begins.  I am very excited to start taking on management of this valuable resource and am look forward to collaborating with everyone who is interested in Bay-related Environmental Education.

I come from a family of teachers.  My mom, dad, sister, uncle, and aunt are all employed as public school teachers in Maryland.  As a new member of Bay Backpack’s management team, and as someone with first-hand knowledge of how hard teachers work, one of the things that has impressed me the most about this website is its scope.  Having such a wide variety of Chesapeake Bay and environmentally focused lesson plans, training events, and funding opportunities in one place provides teachers with easy access to a wealth of information and ideas for their classrooms. The number of resources at this exciting site amazes me, and the great thing is that there are still so many more we can add!

At Bay Backpack, we hope to continue expanding to provide a wide range of resources to help educate and foster stewardship in students and staff alike!  Our Teaching Resources section, for example, will continue to include a variety of new and updated programs.  Be sure to keep checking back as we add more government resources, including National Park Service, NOAA, and EPA programs and curricula.

In the coming year, everyone here at Bay Backpack wants to make sure that this website continues to provide teachers with as much environmentally focused assistance as possible, and we are always looking for feedback.  If there is a field study that is missing from the site, a lesson plan you would like to share with the teacher community, or a suggestion for how we can improve Bay Backpack, please contact us.  We are always looking to expand the Bay Backpack community and to share great ideas with our users, so feel free to recommend resources or talk to us about writing a guest blog.  In 2011, we look forward to remaining THE source for Chesapeake Bay education resources, field studies, trainings and funding opportunities for educators.