• Outstanding Educator
    Chanda Cooper

    Chanda Cooper, Education Coordinator, Richmond Soil and Water Conservation Commune, Columbia, South Carolina

    Chanda frequently uses PLT activities to teach more than 2,000 K–12 students and more than than 300 environmental educators each year about the importance of natural resource conservation. Chanda has put her strong leadership skills to use by hosting and co-facilitating 10 PLT workshops to train educators to use the PLT PreK-8 Guide and the Early Babyhood Guide, and PLT's loftier schoolhouse modules Focus on Forests and Southeastern Forests and Climate Modify. She became a PLT facilitator in 2013 and joined the state PLT steering committee later that twelvemonth. In 2015 she was elected vice-chair, and in 2018, chair of the committee. She has as well served on the board of the Environmental Education Association of Southward Carolina since 2013 and is currently its vice president. Chanda has coordinated countless networking and professional development opportunities for teachers and informal educators, such equally meetups, workshops, and conferences on a multifariousness of environmental topics.

    "Much similar the impact Chanda Cooper has had on my students, I am constantly revived and rejuvenated when I have the opportunity to share a infinite with her."

    Jennifer Strickland-Poole, Clinical Instructor, University of Due south Carolina

    Chanda was named National PLT Outstanding Educator Honoree in 2017 and National PLT Leadership in Teaching Award Honoree in 2018.

  • Outstanding Educator
    David Shelley

    David Shelley, Didactics Coordinator, Congaree National Park, Hopkins, South Carolina

    David Shelley's goal is to amend the understanding, appreciation, and stewardship of natural and cultural resource dimensions of forests and rivers. Working at the Congaree National Park'due south Old-Growth Bottomland Wood Enquiry and Education Center, he provides PLT resources and other workshops to teachers, students, park visitors, and others. He is the driving force behind an almanac outreach program for educators in the South Carolina midlands, too as a project that links art and science. He has also supported Park Service efforts to communicate about climatic change.

    "David is a stiff advocate and role model for PLT in our state."

    – Victoria Pasco, Scientific discipline Lab Teacher, Catawba Trail Elementary School, Elgin, South Carolina

    David was named National PLT Outstanding Educator Honoree in 2016.

  • Outstanding Educator
    Victoria Pasco

    Victoria Pasco, Science Lab Teacher, Catawba Trail Unproblematic School, Elgin, S Carolina

    Starting time trained in PLT in the 1980s, Victoria Pasco has used information technology with a variety of audiences, age groups, and settings. As a science lab instructor, she involves the 550 Catawba Trail elementary students in a hands-on, project-based environmental education curriculum that she created using PLT activities as springboards. She works with students to pattern, create, and maintain wildlife habitats, school gardens, and a nature trail. She uses these outdoor learning spaces on the school campus and also takes students on field trips to instill in children a love for the outdoors. She helps other educators meet how PLT materials can exist used in their classrooms to meet state academic standards, and she is a member of the South Carolina PLT Steering Commission.

    "Victoria has created a program that non only inspires children, it engages the entire family unit….Catawba Trail Elementary School opened in August 2011 and it was immediately apparent that the Science Discovery Eye would be the heart of the school."

    – Denise Barth, Primary, Catawba Trail Elementary Schoolhouse, Elgin, South Carolina

    Victoria was named National PLT Outstanding Educator Honoree in 2015.

  • Outstanding Educator
    Matthew Schnabel

    9-12th Grade Science Teacher White Knoll High School Lexington, South Carolina
    Matthew  Schnabel, 9th-Twelfth Grade Scientific discipline Instructor, White Knoll High Schoolhouse, Lexington, South Carolina

    Matthew Schnabel uses PLT equally a foundation for his Avant-garde Placement Environmental Scientific discipline and Environmental/Nature Studies courses. He brings in guest speakers and introduces his students to outdoor learning through field studies at their school, national parks, local universities, and other locations. Matt encourages his students to take activeness to ameliorate local environmental issues, such as soil erosion and water pollution.

    Matt facilitates 1000-12 PLT educator workshops that emphasize opportunities to utilize what students larn in the classroom to existent-world situations. He showtime participated in, and and so led, the South Carolina Teachers' Bout, an annual forestry program for teachers throughout the state.

    His numerous achievements include the 2013 South Carolina PLT Outstanding Instructor Award and the 2012 Lexington County Soil & H2o Conservation District Teacher of the Year Award. He serves on the South Carolina PLT Steering Committee, as a regional coordinator for the Environmental Educational activity Clan of South Carolina, and in many other organizations.

    "His enthusiasm for the environment has influenced several students to pursue natural resources or environmental education degrees in college. His dedication and initiative accept won him the respect of his peers in both the teaching and natural resources fields."

    – Stephanie Kolok, South Carolina PLT State Coordinator

    Matt was named National PLT Outstanding Educator in 2014.

  • Outstanding Educator
    Cynthia Gardner

    Cynthia Gardner, Assistant Professor and Elementary Instruction Coordinator, Lander Academy, Greenwood, South Carolina

    Cynthia Gardner has been involved with PLT for two decades and has become one of the near active facilitators in South Carolina. She incorporates PLT into her pedagogy classes at Lander Academy, motivating pre-service educators to employ PLT. Before joining the Lander faculty, Cynthia was a long-fourth dimension classroom teacher and used PLT in her everyday lesson plans. She recognizes PLT'due south value in service-learning, and her pre-service students have introduced PLT to the community, in addition to the classrooms where they do their student teaching. Among many other awards for ecology education, Cynthia received the 2010 Due south Carolina PLT Outstanding Educator of the Year award.

    "Dr. Gardner'south dedication to her students, her love for ecology education, her infusion of Projection Learning Tree materials into her programs, and her dedication to the PLT program make her the epitome of what this award represents."

    – Jerry Shrum, South Carolina PLT Coordinator

    Cynthia was named National PLT Outstanding Educator Honoree in 2012.

  • Outstanding Educator
    Sandy Gresham

    Sandy Gresham SC Outstanding Educator
    Sandy Grehsam, Vice Chair, S Carolina PLT Steering Committee

    Sandy Gresham, a recently retired science teacher and environmental didactics coordinator, used PLT to completely transform Lowcountry Preparatory School in Pawleys Isle, Due south Carolina.

    Afterward becoming a PLT facilitator, Sandy helped modify Lowcountry Preparatory Schoolhouse'south curriculum to fully incorporate PLT as a major component, adopting ecology education as the overall vision. She trained the entire faculty in the utilise of the PLT curriculum, helping teachers in all discipline areas contain environmental themes into their classes. Sandy also organized a PLT workshop for early childhood educators in coastal surface area school districts and worked with a middle school in another office of the state to get a PLT School.

    Sandy was then asked by her school's board of directors to serve on the search committee to select a new caput of school committed to environmental educational activity every bit a core value. Through Sandy's efforts, Lowcountry Preparatory School became a South Carolina PLT Ecology School and is at present function of PLT'due south GreenSchools initiative, in which students take the pb in investigating and helping to improve their school environment. Sandy too worked with students in various clubs to develop two outdoor classrooms and a trail around their schoolhouse campus.

    Now that she has retired, Sandy trains teachers in McCormick to use PLT and is serving as vice chair of the S Carolina PLT Steering Committee.

    "Never in my 14 years as the South Carolina PLT Country Coordinator have I seen an individual educator who then enthusiastically embraced the PLT plan and made such a deviation in her schoolhouse and community so quickly."

    – Jerry Shrum, South Carolina PLT State Coordinator

    Sandy was named National PLT Outstanding Educator in 2011, too as being a National PLT Outstanding Educator Honoree in 2010.

  • Outstanding Educator
    Denise Trufan

    denise-trufan-headshot
    Denise Trufan, Science Lab Facilitator, Indian Land Elementary School, Indian Country, S Carolina

    A Due north Carolina resident who teaches in South Carolina, Denise Trufan is active in environmental teaching in both states. She is a certified Environmental Educator in Due north Carolina, where she volunteers at state parks and other facilities. In South Carolina, in addition to her work at Indian Land Elementary School, she often volunteers at workshops and conferences promoting PLT to other educators.

    As Indian Land's scientific discipline lab facilitator, Denise helps teachers and students in grades K through five to enhance learning with hands-on activities, many based on PLT. She is planning PLT workshops for the 85 teachers at Indian Land Elementary, bringing the school one pace closer to condign a "Southward Carolina PLT Certified School," which means PLT will exist used to strengthen learning throughout the entire curriculum. She has as well organized many PLT trainings for teachers at other schools.

    Denise has used PLT activities to increase the school's performance on scientific discipline standardized tests. For example, she created a Discovery Box containing nature items, such equally acorns and bark, that students use to conduct both quantitative and qualitative analysis. They also go outdoors as often as possible to learn about tree characteristics and plant growth. Last year, Denise launched a recycling program that both saved the school thousands of dollars and enthusiastically involved students in all grades.  In one year, they recycled more than 2 tons of paper, more than then 4,000 plastic bottles, and thousands of aluminum cans. Her afterwards-schoolhouse society, the Ecowarriors, performs environmental plays for the school and community, researches environmental problems, and designs gardens that have been certified as Lawn Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.

    "Denise's dedication to her students, love for ecology education, and infusion of PLT materials into her programs make her the prototype of what this award represents."

    – Jerry Shrum, South Carolina PLT Land Coordinator

    Denise was named National PLT Outstanding Educator in 2009.

  • Outstanding Educator
    Susan Ward

    susan-ward-headshot
    Susan Ward, Science Teacher, Whittemore Park Middle School, Conway, S Carolina

    Susan Ward has been involved with PLT since the start of her instruction career in the tardily 1980s, when she helped field-test many of the activities that became part of the revised PLT PreK-8 Guide. She uses PLT with her 7th grade science students on field excursions, camping trips, and in the outdoor classrooms and gardens that she helped create at her school, Whittemore Park Middle School in Conway, Due south Carolina.

    In 2005, Susan worked with the Horry County Schoolhouse District to go PLT activities incorporated into the curriculum as examples of how to include the natural surroundings within land standards and, as a result, increase student accomplishment scores. She trained all the commune's heart school scientific discipline teachers to use PLT activities effectively. She has also conducted many other PLT workshops, training over 200 educators in the Coastal area of Southward Carolina, equally well as Girl Sentinel leaders.

    At Whittemore Park and two other schools where she has also been a teacher, Daisy Elementary and Loris Middle, Susan has launched school-wide recycling programs for newspaper, plastics, and metal. She teaches students to conserve energy, and takes them on field trips to the Horry County Waste Management site to make them more aware of their civic responsibleness as environmental stewards. At Daisy Elementary Schoolhouse, Susan helped to develop and maintain a nature trail and led her students in the planning and creation of a lawn habitat. At Loris Middle Schoolhouse, she created an outdoor classroom area and worked with her students to create a garden for environmental studies.

    For the past 7 years, Susan has presented her personal experiences using PLT to scientific discipline teachers attending the Southward Carolina Science Briefing. She helped correlate PLT materials to Southward Carolina'southward curriculum standards and has continually provided leadership within the Southward Carolina PLT program. Susan shortly serves on the South Carolina PLT Steering Committee as an educational representative, a position she has held for the last 2 years.

    Susan was named National PLT Outstanding Educator in 2008.

  • Outstanding Educator
    Anne Bohnet

    anne-bohnet-headshot
    Anne Bohnet, Director of the Science and Technology Enrichment Program, Ruth Patrick Science Education Center, Aiken, South Carolina

    As Managing director of the Science and Technology Enrichment Program at the Ruth Patrick Science Education Center in Aiken, South Carolina, Anne Bohnet develops a broad variety of natural resource education programs for around ii,700 students in grades 3-12 each twelvemonth. She inspires students' interest in environmental careers by pedagogy science lessons outdoors in a natural environment and instructing students in the apply of scientific tools. She conducts most of her ecology educational activity classes, as well as PLT teacher-training workshops, at the National Audubon Social club'south Silverish Barefaced Audubon Center, a 3,000-acre sanctuary located along the Savannah River. She likewise conducts pupil programs at the Savannah River Site, a Department of Free energy facility, and she provides teacher workshops at the Ruth Patrick Science Education Center.

    Anne exemplifies PLT'due south "awareness to action" philosophy of environmental teaching. She brings groups of students from select high schools to the Savannah River Site to work side-by-side with experienced scientists. Students get hands-on experience using forestry tools and managing five acres of public forestland. Empowered by increased awareness and knowledge, students explore dissimilar viewpoints, challenge ideas and values, and seek consensus on a course of responsible activity.

    Anne became a PLT facilitator in 1994. She has trained over 500 teachers from Georgia and S Carolina in the use of PLT and other environmental education curricula. She procures grants to provide these workshops for costless, every bit well every bit substitute pay for the teachers who attend them. She ensures that pre-service teachers at the University of S Carolina-Aiken are trained in PLT earlier they enter the classroom. Anne likewise writes PLT into the curriculum of many educational programs. Every year, she leads PLT wildland burn education workshops for PreK-12 teachers and arranges a prescribed burn down at National Wild Turkey Federation's headquarters in Edgefield, South Carolina. Anne is a true advocate of environmental pedagogy and she infuses PLT into just nearly every aspect of her piece of work!

    Anne was named National PLT Outstanding Educator in 2006.