Washington, D.C. – Project Learning Tree (PLT), the environmental education program of the American Forest Foundation, named Jane Thornes of St. Maries, Idaho, a 2006 National Outstanding Educator of the Year. Thornes is one of five environmental educators selected nationwide and will receive her award on May 9 during PLT’s 20th International Coordinators’ Conference, May 8-12, in Virginia Beach, VA. The award honors educators who demonstrate a strong commitment to environmental education, exceptional teaching skills, and exemplary use of PLT.

Thornes teaches fourth grade at Heyburn Elementary School in St. Maries, Idaho. She and her forester husband, Jim, own the Pettis Peak Tree Farm near St. Maries and Thornes makes full use of her home in the forest as an outdoor classroom. 

Her fourth grade students, youth from local and regional schools, and Girl and Boy Scout groups, are frequent visitors to this 270 acre working forest. Thornes uses PLT and other environmental education outdoor activities on the Tree Farm to give her visitors a better understanding of a well managed forest and the need to care for our environment. Thornes recruits resource professionals from the U.S. Forest Service and Idaho Department of Lands to help students explore Thorn Creek and conduct science experiments.

Thornes uses PLT’s learning process—from awareness, to understanding, to action—to teach real life lessons. After noticing dead and dying subalpine fir trees along a highway, she worked with the U.S. Forest Service to identify the balsam wooly adelgid as the likely cause and set up a worthwhile research project for her students. Through indoor and outdoor research, Thorne’s students learned that this tiny aphid like insect is spreading to grand fir trees, a valuable timber species in the area.  She inspired and challenged her students to take action to help control its spread by collecting scientific data from study plots. The U.S. Forest Service now has this information to use in plans to address the problem.

“I am in awe of Jane Thorne’s commitment to quality education for her students,” said Michelle Youngquist, Idaho PLT Coordinator and Education Coordinator with the Idaho Forest Products Commission. “At a time when many teachers have surrendered to the pressures of high stakes testing, Jane continues to offer her students real, meaningful education.”

Thornes, a PLT facilitator since 1999, was one of three educators in Idaho selected to correlate all K-12 activities from PLT to Idaho Achievement Standards. The correlations let teachers know how PLT fits with existing curriculum and are available in a searchable online database hosted by the Idaho Department of Education.

For more information please contact Brigitte Johnson, APR, Director of Communications, 202.463.5163, email bjohnson@forestfoundation.org or visit PLT at www.plt.org.

Project Learning Tree (PLT) is the environmental education program of the American Forest Foundation. PLT uses the forest as a “window on the world” to increase students’ understanding of our complex environment and to help students learn the skills they need to make sound choices about the environment.  Developed in 1976, PLT has an international network of more than 500,000 trained educators using six curricula covering the total environment.  The American Forest Foundation, a nonprofit organization, works for healthy forests, quality environmental education, and informed decision-making about our communities and our world.

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