By Peggy Federhart

The Northern Neck of Virginia Audubon Society and the Garden Club of the Northern Neck will again team up to provide scholarships for area teachers to attend Teachers on the Bay this July. Upon successful completion of the course, students earn four graduate or undergraduate credits from the Department of Graduate and Continuing Studies at Mary Washington College. 

The program is a 10-day residential course based at St. Margaret's School in Tappahannock. The cost is $1000, which includes tuition, room and board, vessel time, and resource materials. Bill Portlock, a well-known naturalist and environmentalist with the CBF, will again teach it. His curriculum combines traditional classroom instruction with time on the Bay aboard the research vessel, Bay Watcher, piloted by Jerry Sollner. 

Teachers participate in field research with professional biologists, ecologists, and environmental educators. Upon returning to school in the fall, teachers develop an instructional unit for teaching course or grade level Standards of learning in the environmental field.

Last summer four Northern Neck educators completed the course, including Kathy Corsa, Sharon Homing, Beth Katona, and Paul Chapman. During the fall, they met and shared the benefits of having taken the course. Kathy Corsa of Northumberland Elementary School compiled a resource packet that included brochures, pictures, and websites that she correlated to the SOLs for K-5.

If you know an educator who might be interested in Teachers on the Bay, please have him or her contact C.J. Carter at 435-5157 for application packet. For more information about the course, contact Bill Portlock at 804-633-7249.