Connecticut Outdoor & Environmental Education Association Fund
Past Awardess
Past AwardsThe Connecticut Outdoor and Environmental Education Association Fund announces the winners of the 2011 Environmental Education awards.
Awards were presented on Thursday March 24 at the Annual COEEA Fund Conference. Please join us in recognizing all that these individuals, as well as our Environmental Organizations of the Year, do to promote and further environmental education in the State of Connecticut. Congratulations!
Informal Educator: Judy Witzke, Naturalist – Wonder on wheels – Winding Trails
In 2010, Judy developed a collection and processing protocol that was blessed by DEP that engaged over 1,000 children and 200 families that caught, processed and released over 17, 519 fresh water mussels, fish, frogs and turtles out of an 8 acre pond before it was dredged. Judy is also a volunteer teacher for C.A.R.E fishing, and COVERTS. She is involved with Forest Stewardship planning and volunteers with Sharon Audubon. Judy has mapped several local schools to jump start their school yard habitat programs and is on the steering committee for Project Learning Tree. She works as a Naturalist at Winding Trails and owns her own company (Wonder on Wheels) that takes environmental education into schools and day cares.
Formal Educator: Kelvin Youngs, Environmental Lead Teacher at Barnard Environmental Studies Magnet School
Kel goes above and beyond the call of duty with respect to educating the children at our school to allow the environment to touch them. He works tirelessly to facilitate students to maintain the school courtyard garden yielding fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers. He also team-teaches science lessons to pre-kindergarten through sixth grade students. My own daughter regularly comes home sharing information that Mr. Youngs taught her through some hands-on activity. He even had students find letters in the various shapes a worm wriggles into as its held in the air – what a science & literacy connection that I’m sure the young students will not soon forget.
Administrator of the Year: Catharine S. Sturgess, Executive Director (retired); co-Chair New Canaan Nature Center 50th Anniversary Gala; Vice-President, New Canaan Garden Club
No Photo currently available.
As the former (retired) Executive Director for the New Canaan Nature Center, Catharine Sturgess embraced all aspects of the nature center, encouraging her staff to make the greatest difference possible. She gave the reigns to the educators and inspired us to develop dynamic programming for and to create a connection with the community. In the time since her retirement, her passion for the environment and local community has not waned and her dedication to the New Canaan Nature Center has not waivered. As a co-chair of their 50th anniversary gala, Catharine played an enormous part in the hugely successful fundraiser and celebration held this past October. In addition, she served as a co-chair for NCNC’s Secret Garden Tour, another major event, in June of 2010. As a Vice-President of the New Canaan Garden Club, she spearheaded a yearly town-wide environmental clean-up. Catharine Sturgess has been honored by NCNC and New Canaan’s Outback Teen Center for her community work and continues to inspire her community to be environmentally aware.
Organizations of the Year:
Sound Waters:
As SoundWaters begins its third decade of teaching and exploring, we have become the #1 partner with schools in inquiry-based education about Long Island Sound. We fulfill our mission of protecting Long Island Sound through education, where students learn to care for the ecology and their neighborhoods, connect with their watershed and develop an ethic of responsible citizenship. SoundWaters’ greatest achievement is our ability to consistently create and deliver high quality, timely, hands-on science education in a way that motivates students to become intimately involved with the natural environment.
Education is our tool for: Engaging students from underserved communities with the natural world; safeguarding Long Island Sound and its marine life; promoting science achievement through hands-on investigation.
Since 1989, SoundWaters has offered successful and innovative programs to hundreds of thousands of students. Every day we meet our goal of education and outreach: drawing upon the coast and the sea to challenge and educate both children and adults. At SoundWaters we teach environmental science through a program of discovery, exploration and hands-on learning. From the youngest children (our preschool program) through upper level high school students, as well as adults, we provide enrichment curriculum and experiences at our Coastal Education Center and aboard the SoundWaters, our 80-foot, three-masted Schooner. Outdoors, with their feet in the muck of a nearby marsh or with the wind in their faces on our ship, students can escape the confines of the classroom and learn about the ecology of Long Island Sound and, often, themselves. Our programs are interdisciplinary in nature, improving literacy in science, reading, math and history.
Solar Youth
Since 2000, Solar Youth has been proiding opportunities for young people to develop a positive sense of self and connection and commitment to others through programs that incorporate environmental exploration, leadership and community service. All Solar Youth programs are based on our unique program model for urban environmental education: Kids Explore! Kids Do! Kids Teach! Following this model, youth investigate the local ecology of their community (kids Explore!), identify environmental issues that affect the health og people and the natural environment, and seek solutions through a process of problem-solving and youth led action (kids Do!), then teach what they have learned and accomplished to others through public education projects (kids Teach!). Solar Youth targets youth who reside in New Haven's low income communities who have few opportunities for environmental education. Since its founding, over 3,600 young people have participated in Solar Youth programs. Over 200 are teenagers who have been trained and hired as co-leaders. Participants have completed over 230 youth-led community service action projects ad 150 youth-led public education projects that address environmenatl issues. Today, Solar Youth provides both out-of-school and in-school programs for more than 600 youth annually.
The Connecticut Outdoor and Environmental Education Association Fund announces the winners of the 2010 Environmental Education awards.
Awards were presented on Thursday September 23 at the COEEA annual dinner. Please join us in recognizing all that these individuals, as well as our first Environmental Organization of the Year, do to promote and further environmental education in the State of Connecticut. Congratulations!
Environmental Organization of the Year- Connecticut's Beardsley Zoo
Connecticut's Beardlsey Zoo was recognized as our first ever Environmental Organization of the Year. Recognized for over 8 years of quality environmental education programming, Beardlsey is Connecticut's only zoo and provides families and schools with a wild place for education, conservation, research and recreation. Find them online at www.beardlseyzoo.org.
Environmental Educator of the Year- Lynn Kochiss
A teacher at Woodside Intermediate School in Cromwell, Lynn was recognized for dedication to environmental education both inside her classroom, incorportating science into many disciplines and running her school's Earth Club, and out,volunteering on the Environmental Literacy Plan comittee and through the Connecticut Forest and Park Association.
Outdoor Educator of the Year- Russ Miller
As a 20-year veteran of the CT DEP, there are few people who visit Hammonasset Beach State Park on a regular basis that do not know "Ranger Russ." Russ was recognized for his dedication and work at the Meigs Point Nature Center in Hammonasset, as well as contributions to environmental education in the local community and throughout the State Park system.
Environmental Administrator of the Year- Jeff Greig
Jeff, as a employee for the CT Department of Education, provides an invaluable link between environmental education and state mandates for education. In addition to long-term commitments to organizations such as the Parternship for Sustainability and COEEA Fund, Jeff is currently spearheading the writing of Connecticut's Environmental Literacy plan.
Board Member of the Year- Kristen Allore
As a long-term COEEA Fund board member, Kristen always brings a valuable, positive and can-do perspective to the innerworkings of our board. As secretary, she is responsible for the details of COEEA Fund, a task which may sometimes get overlooked but is very often the tie that holds our volunteer organization together. She is the Program Director at New Pond Farm in Redding, CT.
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