Ruby Estrada

Ruby and Molly, a BEMP teacher partner, setting pitfall traps

Image above: Ruby looks at tree sweep data for the Tamarisk Leaf Beetle project with students

As we take a pause in our BEMP South educational programming, we want to celebrate Ruby Estrada our BEMP South Environmental Educator and the work she’s done over the last year. Ruby has been a force of nature in educating the youth of the Las Cruces, Gadsden, and Hatch school districts. During repeated classroom programming, she helped foster a sense of awareness about local ecology along the Rio Grande for students in these areas with great nuance and sensitivity to cultural diversity. Ruby has been working closely with students and teachers at the J. Paul Taylor Academy to do monthly monitoring, pitfall trapping, and tamarisk leaf beetle surveying at the Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park all year long. She accompanied the JPTA 8th graders to the BEMP Congress 2017 at Las Golondrinas to help students present about their scientific findings. If you in the Las Cruces area, you can still find Ruby educating the southern New Mexico youth –  she will be teaching middle school science at Picacho Middle School this coming school year (2017-2018)! Congratulations Ruby!

We are so grateful for all Ruby has done to enrich BEMP and bring environmental education to BEMP South.