By Heather Butler, 2025 DNCR Teacher Ambassador, Art21 Educator and Art teacher at Northwest Elementary School, Greenville
As a DNCR Teacher Ambassador, there have been many inspiring resources and experiences that have stood out to me – but when I learned about DNCR’s free dual-language publication “Plott’s Tales and Trails: Aventuras con Carolina,” my brain lit up.
Written in English and Spanish, and full of vivid illustrations by Alexa Chumpitaz, the book tells the story of Plott (a hound who happens to be the state dog of North Carolina) and Carolina (a migrating Monarch butterfly.) The two travel across the state learning about special sites rich in history, culture, flora and fauna. Amidst the friendly and educational chattering back and forth, activity pages encourage students to interact with the story.
With a large multilingual population at my school, I was thrilled to discover a resource for my classroom that celebrates language and place.
After sharing the book with our fourth-grade team, we decided to use it to reinforce Social Studies standards. Our learning adventure with Plott and Carolina began by reading in pairs and revisiting what students already knew about North Carolina’s regions. We then began to learn more about each site the friends visited throughout the story.
Next, students were given a list of 16 different DNCR locations beyond those discussed in the book, including sites such as the Battleship, Pilot Mountain, Tryon Palace, and Cliffs of the Neuse State Park. (With over 100 DNCR sites around the state, it was hard to narrow it down!) Students selected a site to explore from the list, with the instructions to share what they learned by illustrating Plott and Carolina’s next adventure to the place they chose.
As I make plans to repeat this project for a new group of fourth graders, I hope to arrange field trips to one or two DNCR sites to deepen student connection to the book, the project, and ultimately, to their home state.
Being a DNCR Teacher Ambassador has been incredibly rewarding. Plott’s Tales and Trails is just one example of how we can make learning meaningful, memorable, and relevant to all learners. When students engage in hands-on, place-based experiences that reflect their language, culture, and community, something powerful happens—they light up. Just like my brain did when I first discovered this book, I hope this project sparks that same excitement and curiosity in my students, inspiring them to see themselves in the stories of North Carolina and beyond.