Caitlin Yoder is education coordinator for the Center for Lakes and Streams at Grace College. Yoder, who lives in Winona Lake, is pictured with her husband, Vincent, and son, Theo, 3. (Photo provided)

WINONA LAKE — Just a few weeks ago, Caitlin Yoder was teaching hundreds of fourth-grade students at Lake Adventure Days in Warsaw. The two-day event, held later in September, serves as a teaching tool for hundreds of students, who learn about local lakes and streams.

“Having them out of the classrooms, they are a lot more engaged. It sticks with them more,” she said of the event she has helped plan for the past two years.

Yoder is education coordinator for the Center for Lakes and Streams at Grace College, a job she has had for the past two years. Lake Adventure Days, an annual event, is just one of the programs Yoder organizes.

“This is a good fit for me,” she said. “I’m passionate about the environment.”

Fishing is one the five stations at Lake Adventure Days.

“We caught more fish than ever,” she stated. Yoder, who works part time, said Lake Days takes about six months of planning.

Yoder also helps coordinate the Center’s Lakes in the Classroom program. There are 24 aquariums in different classrooms in several area schools in Kosciusko County.

She also helps organize an art contest for children and a calendar depicting the children’s artwork.

The best part of her job, said Yoder, is “seeing the kids learning” and she sees “things click with them.”
Yoder also handles the center’s aquatic petting zoo that is for kindergarten classes. These aquatic animals include: crayfish, catfish, frogs and turtles.

“They get to touch and see them,” said Yoder who, along with four student teachers, takes the aquatic creatures into the kindergarten classrooms.

Yoder was born and raised in Kosciusko County. She is a 2010 graduate of Warsaw Community High School. While in high school, she was on the dance team and in the Junior Honor Society. She has a younger brother, Connor. She is a 2013 Grace College graduate and earned her degree in college in accounting in business management. She started as an environmental science major, but then changed majors.

Yoder lives in Winona Lake with husband, Vincent, and a son, Theo, 3. The couple attend Warsaw Community Church. They serve on a committee that “increases core connections at the church,” she explained.

In her spare time, she enjoys jogging on local trails and fixing older homes with her husband.