Washington, D.C. – Project Learning Tree (PLT), the environmental education program of the American Forest Foundation, is holding its 19th International Project Learning Tree Coordinators’ Conference in Welches, Oregon, June 8-June 12, 2005. 

Susan Castillo, Oregon’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction, will give the luncheon keynote address on Thursday, June 9 at the World Forestry Center in Portland at noon.  Castillo will address more than 100 environmental educators in her speech, “Seeing the Forest and the Trees.”

Thursday’s luncheon will also honor five outstanding environmental educators.  This annual award honors PLT trained educators who demonstrate a strong commitment to environmental education, exceptional teaching skills, exemplary use of PLT in classroom projects, and sustained use of PLT.  This year’s winners are: Mary Cutler, a naturalist with the Tippencanoe County Parks & Recreation from West Lafayette, Indiana; Linda Desai, education director & co-founder of Placer Nature Center from Auburn, California; Peggy Herbert, 4th grade teacher at Henniker Community School in Henniker, New Hampshire; and Larry Kowalski, science specialist at Midway Elementary School in Anderson, South Carolina.

For more than 28 years, PLT remains one of the most highly regarded PreK-12 environmental education programs in the U.S. and abroad.  The program’s multi-disciplinary approach uses readily available resources from the natural and built environment to help students gain awareness and knowledge of the work around them.

In 2004, more than 22,000 educators participated in approximately 1,135 PLT professional development workshops.  Currently more than 500,000 educators use PLT’s supplemental curriculum materials that meet state and national education standards.

Project Learning Tree (PLT) uses the forest as a “window on the world” to increase student’s understanding of our complex environment and to help students learn the skills they need to make sound choices about the environment.  The American Forest Foundation, a nonprofit organization, works for healthy forests, quality environmental education, and to help people make informed decisions about our communities and our world.