Staff Spotlight: Drew Gallant
When your classroom is the great outdoors, teaching and learning can happen anywhere! That’s the attitude Drew Gallant brings to his work with NatureBridge as a multi-campus educator. (In addition to his Environmental Science Educator role, Drew has also served as Site Manager and is currently working as the Coastal Camp Coordinator at our Golden Gate campus this summer.)
Drew first joined NatureBridge as an educator at our Prince William Forest campus in Virginia in the spring of 2022. From there, his multi-campus adventures have taken him to two of our California sites, Dangermond Preserve and Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Although it’s located across the country from his childhood home of Maine, Drew now considers our Golden Gate campus to be “home.” This isn’t surprising, considering his favorite NatureBridge memory is that of sighting a pod of dolphins off Rodeo Beach with a group of Golden Gate students!
I love welcoming students to my classroom, which is the outdoors, especially students from underserved and/or inner-city communities.Drew Gallant, Multi-Campus Educator
Asked why he initially got involved in environmental education, Drew quickly responds that it’s because “I never had the chance to participate in a ‘formal’ environmental science program when I was younger.” He recalls spending most of his childhood outdoors, “making mud pies and searching for critters.” Not only did he search for creatures, he cataloged those he found and spent time “inventorying the data”—not a far cry from the experiential learning he now leads hundreds of students in every year as a NatureBridge educator.
After experiencing environmental education activities at his summer camp, Drew began directing a chapter of Project WILD, a nationwide wildlife conservation-focused program led by the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. From there, he began teaching environmental education at various sites across New England before coming to NatureBridge. Why NatureBridge? “I wanted to tie my love for national parks into a full-time job,” Drew says. His passion for national parks spurs Drew to travel in his free time; he is on a quest to complete his personal goal of visiting all 63 national parks (so far he has visited 23)!
I love [the National Parks'] mission of getting everyone outside. The parks are really for everyone, and I love that we can take students, no matter how they identify, and bring them into the national parks.Drew Gallant, Multi-Campus Educator
Program participants immediately pick up on Drew's love for nature and parks and his zest for exploration. Writing after a fifth grade class trip to Prince William Forest this spring, one teacher remarked:
I appreciated Mr. Drew's ability to convey his love of nature in a way that was easily accessible to my students. Whether through the reading of books, the completion of water pH experiments or redirecting students to be careful while they were laying down on the floating dock, Mr. Drew showed patience as well comedic timing when necessary. One of the most important things Mr. Drew did was to make sure the students acknowledged nature. He asked for quiet time when we stopped during our walks. He asked for the students to distinguish the different sounds they were hearing and how they were different from city sounds. I cannot imagine how we could have had a better experience during our time while we were there in April, but our stay would not have been the same without the added expertise of Mr. Drew.
—Winfred Thomas, Fifth grade teacher at Randle Highlands Elementary, Washington, D.C.
Thank you, Drew, for sharing your love of environmental education and national parks with so many students across multiple NatureBridge campuses every year!
Stories
In Memory of Ty Cobb: A Visionary Leader of Resilience and Impact
Ty Cobb, former CEO of Yosemite National Institutes (now NatureBridge), passed away on Saturday, December 7, 2024 in Reno at the age of 84. Known for his visionary leadership, resilience, and ability to inspire collaboration, Ty guided YNI through some of its most difficult moments while building a foundation for its future growth and success.
WildLink November 2024: Woodlake High School
This November, Woodlake High School students and chaperones arrived in Yosemite for their first year as a WildLink school, and we are so excited to have them on the team! That means that the brave students who signed up for this expedition had virtually no idea what to expect before signing up for the trip, because none of their peers had experienced it before them! The week, although quite frigid, was full of lovely views, learning about Wilderness, spending lots of time by the river, and enjoying the beauty of Yosemite Valley and Wilderness. Their educators Sarah and Amelia were excited to help this group feel a sense of belonging in this place. They were also lucky enough to be joined by Ranger Lissie on their first day in the Wilderness!
Fall Reflections from NatureBridge Yosemite
As an environmental science educator, I spend a lot of time teaching about nature, but this season I’ve been finding that as it turns out, nature has a lot to teach us, too. Sometimes I can let the trees, the meadow, and the lichen teach for me. They show us how to respect each other’s boundaries, how to celebrate differences, how to work together, and how to lean on each other’s strengths in order to exist in a new place. These lessons felt incredibly relevant to me heading into the first week of November, a notoriously busy time at NatureBridge Yosemite. I wanted to focus on messages of kindness and inclusivity with my students, I wanted them to feel a sense of belonging in this new space, and I also hoped that they would share those messages with others.