By Staff
special to The Star
Oct. 5, 2002
CANTON The Earth Lab at The Duncan M. Gray Episcopal Camp and Conference Center recently named Isabel Kelly, Joe McGee and Troy Vinson naturalists environmentalists who teach students in kindergarten through 12th grades about nature.
With 17 classes offered at The Earth Lab, Kelly, McGee and Vinson instruct Mississippi students in a variety of courses.
Kelly, a 1959 graduate of Millsaps College, comes to The Earth Lab with more than 20 years of elementary teaching experience in Mississippi.
She also spent her formative and adult years on the grounds of Gray Center. Her educational focuses are Un-Nature Trail, Canoeing and Council of All Beings for the environmental education center.
McGee, a native of Newton County, offers a lifetime of conservation awareness to The Earth Lab participants.
A 1965 graduate of Mississippi State University, McGee is a former research associate in microbiology in both Washington and California.
Since the 1980s, he has been actively involved in the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society of Meridian and Jackson. McGee will specialize in Trees: The Rest of the Web; Insects and the Web of Life; and Beaks, Feathers and Talons.
Vinson, a 1998 graduate of University of Mississippi, received a bachelor's degree in English.
He is new to The Earth Lab program; however, he is not new to the program's grounds. In 1994, he served as nature programmer for Gray Center's long-running summer camp, Camp Bratton-Green.
Prior to his stint as nature programmer, he spent nearly 20 years as a camper and counselor at Camp Bratton-Green. Vinson will instruct students in Water and Life; Lake Hike; and Orienteering.
Established in 2000, The Earth Lab at Gray Center seeks to provide unique opportunities for students to experience hands-on, up-close encounters with the wonders of nature.
Designed to educate participants about the web of life, The Earth Lab attempts to increase student awareness of their role and also to inspire them to live in a sustainable and mutually enhancing way with all creation.
Duncan M. Gray Episcopal Camp and Conference Center is a nonprofit organization owned and operated by the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi. However, The Earth Lab is completely nonsectarian and is offered to all students regardless of race, religion, ability or gender.
Gray Center includes Camp Bratton-Green, Duncan M. Gray Conference Center and The Earth Lab at Gray Center.