As a full-time student at West Virginia State University and a full-time employed head custodian within Kanawha County Schools, I have extensive knowledge about utilizing resources from our county, from networking with local communities, organizations, volunteer services and nonprofit organizations, for our classroom and learning opportunities for the students! Some of these resources include supplies for students, weekend snack bags for students, presentations in the classrooms or assemblies, demonstrations, and providing services for the classes or school, for example, creating shirts for classes or funding class parties and projects! These experiences provide leadership and learning opportunities, the opportunity to build background knowledge into topics, and the development of desired social behaviors from specific resources if you take advantage of them in the county. You can also use the services you can use if you know about them! Additional resources include visitations from your local community police and fire department, environmental protection agencies, and any government agency you would like to provide information and demonstrations, which could be readily available through communication and building a network of relationships. These will benefit the students and the community in which they live as they provide knowledge of these services and what the institutions provide for the country's people. 

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While being a WVSU student, I enrolled in a Leadership Certification course that earned me four college credits. This was through the accredited National Society of Leadership of Success, and in doing so, I had to create a Leadership Portfolio and develop an action plan to start implementing that in my community. I worked at Nitro Elementary as the Head Custodian for six years, and my "Better World Project" was to work with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WV DEP) and create an Adpot-A-Spot for the school and my students. The Nitro Elementary School CARES Club is our name, and we collect litter and recycled aluminum cans, plastic, and steel. We collected physical resources, recycled and used them for the greater good, teaching lessons of responsibility, leadership, respect for ourselves and the community, collaboration with our team members, and promoting friendship while helping provide a service to the city of Nitro and cleaning our playgrounds keeping the grounds safe for the rest of our students as well! In creating the organization, I received my Advanced Leadership and Executive Leadership certifications within the NSLS in 2022. In May 2024, after filing our extensive recycling reports, the NES CARES Club was recognized at the WV DEP Youth Environmental Protection Awards ceremony as the award recipient for third place in the state for best Youth Environmental Liter Control Program! 

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As a professional, I discovered how to call upon the resources available in the professional community to help serve the school's needs. I called the WVDEP Youth Environmental Area Director, Tom Aluse, to come to Nitro Elementary to present an education-based awareness demonstration about the importance of our jobs to protect the environment. On December 8th, 2023, he came to Nitro and presented to the entire third through fifth grade, and this was a tremendous learning activity for our students, the educators and myself. This is an example of a resource provided by a government agency. Not only did he visit with a presentation, but he also brought supplies, such as physical resources for the classes, workbooks, and crayons from recycled materials! We learned about the resources the WV DEP can offer schools, such as educational materials, demonstrations, activity workbooks, and local information events.

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As a student still enrolled in HHP 431, Physical Education for Classroom Teachers class, I developed a living document, a resource log using my technology skills on Canva to log active links to usable resources, YouTube videos, and additional games and brain breaks crucial to my school year. These include educational videos about making "healthy food choices," social science experiences for my classroom with "food for mood," the importance of "clean drinking water," an important lesson in "dialing 911" when in an emergency, tips for washing hands and yoga to keep the mind and body safe and at peace, a video on how to use "sensory" in the classroom and school, the GoNoodle website link, along with WVPBS, and WVDEP links along with my favorite game, "Throw, Throw Burrito!"

 

In my Education 325 Teaching Social Studies course, I assembled an organized log mentor text for teaching the NCSS ten Social Studies standards. This artifact is attached below and includes two books for each standard, for a total of twenty books I can use in my classroom to teach each standard for Social Studies content. I will continue to use it as my career progresses and update these as needed to keep my list accurate and advance on the topics and interests of students. For example, I have met NCSS standards VIII, Science, Technology, and Society, with A. Thorpe's (2021) The Story of Katherine Johnson: An Inspiring Biography for Young Readers (The Story of Inspiring Biographies for Young Readers), this book has local relevance here to West Virginia heritage in the topic with Katherine Johnson, a WVSU graduate who is an African-American woman who changes the history in NASA with spaceship trajectory.