Miss Delaware dedicated to teaching children about the environment

The work never ends at Longwood Gardens.

There's constant planning, designing and planting.

They're already wrapping up plans for this coming Christmas.

Display Design Intern Jolisa Copeman is right in the thick of things.

"My supervisor will come to me with all of his plans, and then I'm in charge of updating it onto auto-cad, and I do a lot of different photoshop renderings of what things will look like," says Copeman.

But Jolisa is not your typical intern, she was crowned Miss Delaware USA in November.

Earning the crown means she gets to share her passion for the environment as her platform.

She's visiting schools in Delaware, sewing seeds she hopes will grow environmental consciousness.

"So it's called 'Seed Your Future' and that's actually a program through Longwood Gardens, and it's just a motion to inspire children to pursue careers working with plants," Copeman says. "I grew up in the Poconos, so I was always outside, and I was able to form that connection with nature early on."

The proud University of Delaware graduate has traveled the world studying the environment, earning an undergraduate and Master's degrees.

She's committed to teaching young people that everyone can contribute to saving our environment.

"So there's this whole notion of climate change, and I just really want kids to understand that our future needs to be green in order for everyone to live a healthy and sustainable lifestyle. So if we inspire kids to pursue these careers young on, then all these habits that they need and their daily lifestyles to recycle, to buy food locally, to turn off the water when they're brushing their teeth, will all help our future," says Copeman.

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