Summer Zephyr, Media Specialist, A.D. Harris High School, Panama City, Florida
A.D. Harris High School is a dropout prevention school for at-risk youth. As a media specialist at the school, Summer Zephyr uses PLT to help students build their knowledge base through experience, exploring varying viewpoints, ideas, and values. For the past two years, Summer has sponsored a project entitled “Go Native…Plants” that incorporates service-learning and takes students outside using PLT activities. Through this project, students created a school garden that identified 15 threatened native species. Another aspect of the project, All Natural Makeover, involved students in incorporating native species into the landscape of two model homes. Finally, students worked with a landscape architect to design and plant native vegetation donated by community members for another demonstration house. This year, Summer will work with her students to restore a wetlands area near the school. She has recruited other schools to join the project and incorporate PLT into their lessons.
Summer was named National PLT Outstanding Educator Honoree in 2008.
Vanessa Bullwinkle
Vanessa Bullwinkle
