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Weekly Wonder

Engaging Nature through Multiple Lenses

Bring science processes and SEL alive using wonder and the natural world... and trade some screen time for GREEN time! Free online resources help in-person or virtual teachers access nature with students.  

Takeaways: Participants will: 

  1. learn how to access and use a suite of free web-based resources designed to promote discovery learning in nature; 
  2. experience the lesson individually and discuss it with colleagues to make meaning and increase relevance for both teachers and their students; and
  3. share and discuss applications for using these tools for discovery learning in their own setting.  

Meet your Instructor

Meet your Instructor

John DiDiego
Education Director, Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont

John grew up catching snakes and turtles in the creeks and pine woods of upstate South Carolina, and he has never lost his love of wild things and wild places. He holds a BA degree in English Literature from the University of Notre Dame and an MS in Natural Resources/Environmental Education from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.  

He has always enjoyed international travel and served two stints in the Peace Corps in Morocco and Russia. In 25+ years in environmental education, John has worked in places as far-flung as New England, Yosemite NP, far eastern Russia, and Georgia; but there is no place he’d rather be than home in the southern Appalachians.   

He and his wife Michele have two boys, 13 and 16. They live in an old house with a little yard mostly comprising vegetable gardens, native vines, and milkweed for monarchs.  

He enjoys the changing seasons and the magic of changing students’ lives at Tremont.