Hello! I´m Elke (pronounced Elka). Teaching is my second career, having started out as an urban, and then environmental planner. I received a Master´s degrees in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan and then a Master´s in Land Resources (ecological restoration) from UW- Madison. For several years, I assessed and mitigated development impacts to wetlands and streams for a county in western Washington. When I left that world to become a teacher, I was hopeful that I would one day be able to meld these two worlds. After teaching in conventional schools for the last several years, it has happened! I am really excited to be welcomed to the Sugar Maple Nature School community!

As a teacher, I seek to create lifelong learners who delight in the complexity of the world. I prefer to ask questions rather than provide simplistic answers. I seek out authentic learning experiences (reading great books, research and experimentation, cooperative projects, and writing) that require deep thinking and communication.

Despite growing up in urban Madison, I was lucky to have a small remnant woods and an old railway line near my house that afforded a taste of the wild. My father also took me hunting and spoke often about the need to preserve and conserve the land (hence the career as a planner). So my appreciation of nature was fostered early. While I like to bike and swim, my favorite activity is hiking; I have hiked a bit of the Appalachian Trail, a chunk of the Ice Age Trail, and extensively in the Chuckanuts (part of the Cascades). Now most of my time is taken up with spending time with my daughter, an avid frogger and reluctant violin student!