Angelita T.
“If you are passionate about plants, the environment, and making a difference in your own community, sustainable horticulture gives you the opportunity to turn those interests into something meaningful."
Angelita sees environmental education as a conversation. Through her online studies in sustainable horticulture at Unity Environmental University, she has found ways to connect what she learns with the people and places around her on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
What she learns at Unity goes far beyond her coursework. Angelita carries the research and projects from her courses into everyday life, sharing them with friends, family, and local watermen, and even with the children she knows.
Her conversations often center on life on the Eastern Shore. Pollinators come up, along with climate change and the health of the Chesapeake Bay.
Her education has also pushed her to keep learning on her own time. She has visited Horn Point Laboratory and asked questions there, then connected what she saw happening in her area to what she studies at Unity.
That link between learning and experience has become especially meaningful through her many years as a beekeeper. Pairing hands-on beekeeping with her sustainable horticulture studies has given her a practical understanding of the natural world and new ways to share it.
“The more I share with my community, the more my community teaches me.”
The impact has gone both ways.
Sharing what she is learning has sparked curiosity about plants and pollinators, and about climate change and the Chesapeake Bay. Those conversations, in turn, have expanded her own understanding. Local watermen have offered firsthand perspectives that give real-world context to her studies, and a visit to Horn Point Laboratory let her watch environmental research and restoration in action.
Most importantly, Angelita has learned that education is not a one-way exchange. Each conversation with a neighbor or a waterman adds to what she knows, and that has strengthened both her education and her desire to keep educating others about the natural world.
Unity has deepened her understanding of environmental issues and given her tools to research them and evaluate scientific information. Just as important, she now knows how to tie what she learns to real-world situations. Her coursework has encouraged her to look closely at issues affecting her own town, which makes her education feel personal and relevant.
She has also grown more confident. Asking questions and talking with others about environmental topics comes more easily now, and so does finding chances to learn beyond her coursework.
Rather than simply learning about environmental issues, Angelita is finding ways to experience them, understand them, and share them with the world around her.
That connection to the real world is one of the things she values most about studying sustainable horticulture.
“I love that what I am learning can be applied to the real world, not just to an assignment,” she says.
Put Your Education Into Action
Angelita’s experience shows how an environmental education can become part of everyday life. By pairing her coursework with hands-on experience, conversations with her neighbors, and the natural world around her, she is continuing to learn while helping others learn too.
At Unity Environmental University, students have opportunities to connect what they study with the places and causes they care about.
