The Chinquapin Oak on Winchester’s Traveling Trail has grown in an open environment for likely it’s whole life, spreading its roots and branches far and wide, rising to its fullest potential.

Erin Sliney, Clark County’s newest environmental educator, said she’s been learning more about venerable trees of the Bluegrass and Clark County’s unique landscape, since joining The Greater Clark Foundation team in October 2018.

“It’s unique and lush and beautiful,” she said. 

Sliney, 29, is an environmental educator and AmeriCorps service member serving Clark County at GCF through AmeriCorps’ Environmental Education Leadership Corps (EELCorps), an AmeriCorps program funded through Serve Kentucky and offered exclusively in Kentucky. The Kentucky Environmental Education Council administers the program.

“I’ve been surprised by how Kentucky is more of a national leader in environmental education than I ever knew,” Sliney said.

Sliney is one of about 16 service members throughout Kentucky focusing on environmental education.

“I’m serving at The Greater Clark foundation to develop programs for Legacy Grove,” Sliney said. “Other members of my corps are working at (The Arboretum, State Botanical Garden of Kentucky) or Bluegrass Greensource or Lexington Parks and Recreation.”

Sliney is in the process of developing foundational programs for Legacy Grove park and Clark County focusing on the environment, nature, outdoor play and volunteering.

“I’m trying to use the community input to shape the programs that I’m going to lead,” Sliney said. “Those results are just coming in, but I would like to lead children’s programming. I want to integrate music and art into environmental education and arts and crafts projects such as leaf rubbings …

“Specifically, I’m looking at doing a toddler program … I’m also trying to involve as many volunteers as possible to help make this space beautiful and vibrant. I want to engage with as many members of the community who would like to come on and teach something at the park.”

At the end of her assignment in August, Sliney will provide a list of recommendations to Clark County leaders for how to best use Legacy Grove as an environmental education resource in the community.

While Sliney’s primary focus is creating programming for the new park, she also collaborates with other organizations to develop and facilitate effective environmental learning opportunities throughout the county.

“I’ve been going out and seeing who was already offering environmental education programming and then also outdoor recreation programming in Clark County,” Sliney said. “I’ve been trying to talk with as many of those leaders and educators as possible.”

Sliney said she has worked with the Winchester Inspired by Nature group to help them with their mission and related activities. Most recently, Sliney discussed the impacts of littering with Shearer Elementary School students with Clark County Emergency Management Director Gary Epperson at the Careers on Wheels event.

Sliney graduated from Centre College in 2011, where, she studied anthropology, sociology and Spanish. Since graduating, the Bourbon County native, who grew up on horse farms on Clintonville and Ironworks roads, has worked in a variety of different outdoor and educational setting across the country.

“After I left Centre, I went to teach at a summer camp in Maine,” Sliney said. “I just wanted to get out and see the world and do something fun. So, I taught ceramics at a summer camp in Maine.”

Sliney returned to Kentucky and traveled with a backcountry chain saw crew removing invasive species of trees. She continued to move around for a while, working as a hiking guide in Guatemala and then in Alaska at Denali National Park. She also worked on a conservation crew building trails outside of Las Vegas and then in the Ruby Mountains in northeastern Nevada.

Her interest in teaching grew, so Sliney moved to Vermont for two summers, working at a camp there.

Most recently, Sliney worked as an instructor and then administrator for a residential outdoor science school in Redding, California.

“I worked at an environmental school in Northern California for five seasons, and I fell in love with it there,” Sliney said. “I started just as a naturalist leading the kids. We had a group of 12 to 20 kids, fifth and sixth graders, that we would take out for five-hour hikes every day and teach them about the water cycle, photosynthesis, rock cycle, what critters live in the streams, water quality … And then I became the lead naturalist there.”

Sliney returned to Kentucky for a wedding and decided she wanted to come home to spend more time getting to know the state.

“I saw this position, and I just couldn’t pass it up,” Sliney said.

Sliney said she is happy to bring her passion of connecting children to the natural world back to her home in the Bluegrass while she works to finish a master’s degree in resilient and sustainable communities from Green Mountain College, where she is also working on a thesis assessing the needs of Clark County in regards to environmental education.

“This is the first time that I’ve been anywhere for longer than seven months since I graduated from Centre,” she said.

Sliney is also a singer-songwriter who loves to hike, have spirited conversations over the dinner table, and has entrepreneurial dreams of starting an educational farm and venue in Kentucky.

“I’m also interested in creating a food forest,” Sliney said.

She plays the guitar, sings in the Bourbon County Community Choir and is learning the fiddle. She said she is hoping to record an album soon, but in the meantime, she tries to incorporate music into her environmental education programs.

Sliney is also leading Wednesday Walks at the Winchester Traveling Trail from noon to 12:30 p.m. every Wednesday during the Wellness Challenge, which ends in mid-May.

“The walk was designed to be a perfect lunch break,” Sliney said. “You have a half an hour you can go out; you can get some exercise, get some fresh air, meet new people, and then learn a little bit about the plants of the area, so I do one tree of the day or plant of the day.”

When leading environmental education programs, Sliney said it’s always a fun and wholesome time.

“I love how happy being outside makes a lot of people,” she said.

Sliney said she loves getting to share her passion for the environment with others, and she’s particularly interested in passing that passion on to children in the community, spreading it in the open like the roots and branches of the age-old Chinquapin Oaks of the Bluegrass.

“If you don’t know the environment, if you don’t love the environment, if you’re not familiar with it, then you won’t care about it so much,” Sliney said. “I care about the environment, and I hope that other people, especially kids, can see the value in it. Icompletely supports human existence.”