The outstanding team of faculty at Mary Baldwin College’s Environment-Based Learning (EBL) program is led by Tamra Willis, a national leader in the field of environmental education.
Tamra Willis
Program Director for Environment-Based Learning (EBL), MBC Assistant Professor for Graduate Teacher Education
twillis@mbc.edu
540-887-7135
Tamra Willis is an assistant professor in the Graduate Teacher Education Program at Mary Baldwin. She directs the summer Environment-Based Learning program (EBL) and teaches courses such as The Intersection of Life and Land and The Outdoor Classroom.
Willis directs several grant-funded projects involving partnerships between MBC, area school divisions, natural resource agencies, and industries. The projects provide professional development for teachers and support their efforts to use the natural environment and local issues as the foundation for curriculum integration. She is also co-editor of the Natural Teachers Network newsletter.
During her 25 years in the field of education, Willis has served as an elementary classroom teacher, science coordinator, and environmental educator. As a classroom teacher, she loved taking her students outdoors for lessons that integrated standards-based content with nature studies. In addition, she has conducted research on elementary teachers who include schoolyard habitats as a focus of their curriculum. She holds a BS from Appalachian State University, an MEd from James Madison University, and a PhD from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Betty Gatewood
MBC Graduate Teacher Education Teacher-in-Residence
bgatewoo@mbc.edu
540-887-7138
Betty Gatewood works with K-12 grade students and teachers as the MBC Graduate Teacher Education teacher-in-residence. Though she continues to be a public school teacher, Betty is stationed in the Environment-Based Learning program at MBC through a grant from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, Bay-Watershed Education and Training (B-WET). Her grant-funded projects are designed to encourage teachers and students to study all subjects using the natural environment, and specifically to address water quality issues affecting the Chesapeake Bay.
Gatewood has experience as a park naturalist, hike leader, and environmental educator. She has been a 7th grade life sciences teacher in Augusta County Public Schools since 1994 and is well known for her efforts to provide students with meaningful field experiences and hard-core investigations of the local environment. Her former students have won state and national titles for Envirothon events and the River of Words writing contests. An avid nature journalist and well-known artist, Gatewood co-teaches Nature Journaling across the Curriculum and other courses. Gatewood is a graduate of the University of Missouri, Columbia.
