2010 Outstanding Educators

Joy Cowart, Georgia

Joy Cowart, a teacher at Lowndes High and Hahira Middle Schools, says she remembers attending her first PLT workshop in 2001 somewhat reluctantly, but once she experienced PLT’s hands-on activities, she was hooked. She now uses PLT with middle and high school students to teach language arts lessons, English as a second language classes, literature, and more. She uses PLT’s reading and writing strategies and its multi-disciplinary activities to increase her students’ vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing skills, while at the same time increasing their awareness and knowledge of environmental issues.

Through a PLT GreenWorks! grant, Joy involved Hahira students in an environmental service-learning project to landscape their public library. Joy also uses PLT’s hands-on activities as a Sunday school teacher, at summer camps, and in a Migrant Summer School curriculum. Now a PLT facilitator, Joy has conducted more than 25 workshops at Valdosta State University, training more than 1,000 future science teachers in how to use the environmental education lessons of PLT when they enter the classroom.

Joy earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in middle school education and also has a master’s in educational leadership. She became a National Board Certified Teacher in 2008.

Susan Cox, New Hampshire

Susan Cox is the Conservation Education Coordinator for the Northeastern Area of State and Private Forestry for the US Forest Service.  She promotes learning about forests and the environment by forging partnerships between natural resource professionals and educators within her northeastern 20-state region. She incorporates PLT’s hands-on curriculum to provide them with teaching strategies and science content so they, in turn, can train teachers, youth program leaders, and students.

Susan began her career as a forester specializing in forest health, but became interested in pursuing a career that specifically involves teaching adult learners about science and the environment. She earned a master’s degree in adult education, and now works full-time on conservation education initiatives with the US Forest Service.

Susan is a leader in advising the direction of the US Forest Service in its education and outreach mission. In several states, she has helped design and deliver programs for teachers and other educators, including teacher forestry tours in Maine and watershed institutes for teachers in New York. Nationally, she has advised the Council of State Science Supervisors on incorporating environmental education into state science standards and other policies to enhance science literacy and instruction.  In New Hampshire, she is part of a team working on developing a statewide environmental literacy plan. 

Susan has helped NH PLT design and implement the “A Forest for Every Classroom” program, a year-long professional development series for middle and high school educators that uses place-based education to foster student understanding of—and appreciation for—the forested lands in their communities. 

Susan is past president of New Hampshire Environmental Educators, the state’s professional environmental education organization, as well as an active participant in the NH Science Teacher Leaders Group.

Reeda Hart, Kentucky

Reeda Hart has worked at Northern Kentucky University’s (NKU) Center for Integrative Natural Science and Mathematics as a science outreach specialist for the past seven years.  Before that, she was an elementary school teacher for 27 years.

In her current role, Reeda takes PLT into classrooms in six school systems, integrating the environment into academic lessons and modeling teaching practices for teachers. She has created units on topics ranging from water to energy to life cycles, using PLT as a foundation to provide interactive content that supplements the teaching of core subjects, methods for elaboration, and assessment tools. Over a three-year period during which she worked with six schools, the schools’ Academic Index scores rose significantly.

Reeda also helps the schools she works with design and develop outdoor classrooms, and emphasizes training for teachers in PLT to ensure the spaces are used as effective teaching tools. Reeda is trained as a PLT facilitator, which means that she can train other teachers how to use PLT’s preK-12 environmental education curricula.

Reeda helped develop PLT’s new national Early Childhood program.  Designed specifically for early childhood educators, this curriculum resource uses developmentally appropriate techniques for connecting young students to nature.  With Reeda’s assistance, NKU is beginning an Early Childhood Alliance to provide PLT training to local preschool teachers.

Kurtis Koll, Oklahoma

Growing up on a farm in Iowa led Kurtis Koll to develop a deep appreciation for nature and the importance of connecting with nature. Now he is professor of physical sciences at Cameron University and a resident of Lawton, Oklahoma.

While teaching a full schedule of semester-long science courses, Kurtis created a series of environmental education short courses for pre-service science teachers that he opens to other students as well. He takes students to state and national parks and wildlife management areas to investigate local environmental issues, and blends this experience with discussions about local, national, and global current events. The courses are always full because word has spread about his enthusiasm and creativity as a teacher.

Kurtis also conducts workshops for teachers from local school districts and uses PLT’s hands-on activities with scout groups, home-schoolers, and adults at public outreach events. He directs two science camps each year for K-9th grade students to conduct science investigations as they explore their community.  Kurtis also conducts “natural experience” programs with youth in the Comanche Nation Youth Program and the Wichita-Caddo Tribal Youth Program.

Debra Wagner, Florida

For more than 28 years, Debra Wagner has brought the environment into her classroom, and taken her students outdoors to learn. She is a 4th-grade teacher at St. Paul Lutheran School in Florida. Debra's love of the land is contagious, and many of her projects (including an annual “Celebrate Creation” week) involve students throughout the entire PreK-eighth grade school, their parents, and the community. Through her efforts, St. Paul is a PLT-certified school, a Nationally Certified Schoolyard Habitat, and is now part of the national PLT GreenSchools! program in which students investigate a wide range of environmental issues and design action projects to reduce their school’s environmental footprint. Debra serves as a mentor to PLT workshop facilitators and participates in initiatives at the University of Florida to provide reading exercises and writing prompts for PLT activities to improve literacy.

Read about the 2010 Honorees