Vermont native Eleanor Moody ’20 is passionate about environmental education and language, and she’ll combine these interests as a Fulbright scholar starting early next year.

Moody credits her mom for instilling a love and appreciation of the Vermont outdoors—she became an avid hiker at a young age. “I just wanted to be outside as much as a I could,” Moody recalls. 

A Spanish class trip to the Dominican Republic as a student at Champlain Valley Union High School was also a big influence. “We spent two weeks in an incredible mountain town volunteering, and I saw how I could use Spanish to make real connections with people.”

When it came time to consider college, Moody applied to several out of state schools but in the end, the natural pull of Vermont and the in-state tuition drew her to UVM. She took Rubenstein School lecturer Trish O’Kane’s nationally recognized “Birding for Change” class, and Moody saw how environmental education can be a powerful tool for social change.

The class pairs UVM students with Burlington elementary school students, and birdwatching becomes the vehicle for observing backyard nature. She later worked at Burlington’s J.J. Flynn Elementary School for two semesters as an environmental educator. 

“The focus is on birding, and the kids take a lot of pride in how many species they can identify,” Moody said. “Overall, it builds an enthusiasm for their natural heritage.” That’s a big takeaway, she says, for a generation coming of age as the effects of global climate change are taking hold. 

She rounded out her college experience by taking a global seminar offered by Vermont’s School for International Training. While earning credits towards her UVM degree, she explored food, water and energy resources in Vietnam, Bolivia, and Morocco. 

Moody is intrigued with the idea of applying O’Kane’s approach in another setting, and she’ll travel to the Canary Islands to begin her six-month Fulbright teaching assignment in January. That’s where her Spanish language skills come in.

“I’ve been learning Spanish for a while and I now feel like I’m at a point where it’s starting to get easier and easier,” she said in a recent interview with the Vermont Cynic. “It feels like it’s finally coming together in an exciting way after a lot of years of frustration and hard work.”

Moody looks forward to a career as an educator and advocate for global climate issues. She’s already looking into non-profits in South America she might collaborate with when her Fulbright assignment concludes.

Fulbrights are designed to foster international partnership and enable graduates and recent alumni to conduct research or teach English abroad in more than 125 countries. More University of Vermont students—a total of nine—received Fulbright U.S. Student Awards in 2020 than ever before.