Richard C. Bartlett Environmental Education Award

2011 Winners

2011 Bartlett Award Winner

John Schmied, 7th grade science teacher, Skyview Junior High School, Bothell, Wash.

“Whether it’s environmental grounding tasks or helping kids build their own environmental center, John connects his students to the living world,” said Marie Hartford, a fellow teacher. “He relates every plant touched back to our imperiled Puget Sound. His concern for this issue led him to form a non-profit dedicated to showing the hidden issues of waste water that greatly impact our region’s health. Therefore, John’s colleagues and students of all ages consider him a crucial mentor for their own sustainable actions.”

John Schmied is a 7th grade science teacher at Skyview Junior High School in Bothell, Wash. He has been a public school teacher for 17 years. His 21 years of service in the US Coast Guard and experience as a Lieutenant Commander informs his teaching style and he has used his exceptional strategic planning and strong business acumen to help raise over 1 million dollars to add green features to a regional environmental education center at a local wastewater treatment plant that will be used to teach thousands of students and community members about the science and significance of clean water.  Schmied is known for his commitment to utilizing environmental education to empower students to teach other students. In classroom projects that raise Coho salmon and Red-legged frogs – native keystone species of the Pacific Northwest – Schmied trained students to take responsibility for every aspect of caring for the young animals, from managing the overall project to maintaining their habitat.These students in turn trained incoming students and the model has now been adopted by teachers throughout the district, including those at the elementary level.  With a belief that science is the nexus of all subjects, Schmied employs a cross-disciplinary, systems approach to environmental education, frequently collaborating with teachers of math, art, literacy, social studies and history to integrate these disciplines into environmental learning. He has also pioneered cross grade lessons, enlisting older students to teach younger students about slugs, fish, mice and frogs and collaborating with elementary classes on native planting field studies for schools, parks and wastewater treatment plants. Schmied is highly regarded as a passionate mentor to teachers within his school, district and state where he has facilitated summer workshops on running animal studies in the classroom for science method courses and has played a lead role in writing and implementing Washington State’s Integrated Environmental Sustainability Learning Standards.

Underscoring an emphasis on using science to inform personal and community environmental responsibility, every student in Schmied’s class develops and implements their own action project to improve their environment called “My Present to the Environment.”  Students also do at least three days of service work in Skyview’s 6.5-acre Outdoor Environmental Learning Center that Schmied helped raise funds for and which students designed, built and continue to maintain. Schmied’s engagement of the community in environmental learning includes a focus on families. Near Earth Day, each student schedules a family meeting in which the family takes an environmental sustainability survey, creates an action plan listing three things their family is going to do to improve their local environment and then documents the results. Another example of Schmied engaging his students in the community includes a student developed Environmental Action Project that convinced a local chain of hardware stores to accept compact fluorescent light bulbs for recycling to address community concerns around the unsafe disposal of mercury.

Schmied’s teaching approach has yielded impressive academic results. His students have scored an average of 13 points higher than other students on the statewide science tests. Despite a reputation for rigorous and demanding coursework, over 48 percent of his students have earned an A grade in his classes the last two years running and he has been able to successfully support non-academically oriented students to become leaders in outdoor and hands on environmental learning activities. As testimony to the lasting impact of Schmied’s teaching, dozens of his students have gone on to pursue science and engineering degrees and often cite Schmied’s 7th grade science class as the spark for their academic and career pursuits.

2011 Bartlett Award Merit Winner
Frank McKay, 8th grade math and science teacher, Exploris Middle School, Raleigh, N.C.

“Students leave my class understanding the complexities of environmental issues that impact the economy, public health and shared resources,” said McKay. By working collaboratively to propose solutions to environmental issues, they are better prepared to make decisions as citizens in the 21st century.”

Frank McKay is an 8th grade math and science teacher at Exploris Middle School in Raleigh, N.C.  McKay expertly leverages partnerships with local organizations, such as the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences and the City of Raleigh, to develop award-winning environmental service learning projects and engage his students in real-world environmental education. In 2008, McKay was on the leadership team that established a formal partnership with the N.C. Museum of Natural Science and rewrote the Exploris school mission to focus on global sustainability. Recognized as the 2008 Environmental Educator of the Year by Environmental Educators of North Carolina, McKay is very active in the environmental education community throughout North Carolina. He also authored curriculum on the PBS series “Exploring North Carolina” that has been distributed to all K-8 schools in North Carolina.

McKay’s students connect with the local environment on many levels beyond science. Participating in the Walnut Creek Oral History Project, students gained an understanding of the connection between Raleigh’s cultural history and the wetlands. His students also created resources for Raleigh’s Nature Programs. Over 95 percent of McKay’s students scored at or above grade level in 2010 and the SAS Education Value Added Assessment System indicated that his students achieve at a rate significantly higher than predicted by their incoming level. McKay’s students, particularly the 8th grade girls, have indicated in their self-assessments that their experience in his courses have led them to become more engaged in both science and environmental issues.

2011 Bartlett Award Merit Winner
Alan Fiero, 7th grade science teacher at Farnsworth Middle School, Guilderland, N.Y.

“The innovative nature of my approach to environmental education lies in its simplicity. It is based on just one main tenet. Environmental education should be authentic and meaningful,” says Fiero. “Authentic because it is linked directly to the environment in which the child lives. Meaningful because students are empowered to make a difference.”

Alan Fiero is a 7th grade science teacher at Farnsworth Middle School in Guilderland, N.Y. The keystone of Fiero’s environmental education efforts is his collaboration with the Albany Pine Bush Commission and an innovative place-based learning initiative that involves his students in the long-term restoration of the unique and local Pine Bush ecosystem.  The comprehensive Pine Bush project involves interdisciplinary and experiential learning, field trips, service learning and community projects. In addition to the Pine Bush Project, Fiero engages his students in the conservation of the local endangered Karner Blue Butterfly. This year over 300 students will participate in the Karner Blue Butterfly rearing program. Participating students employ technology to enhance environmental learning, including using a webcam to monitor the project, and work directly with scientists to improve butterfly rearing techniques. Now in its thirteenth year, Fiero’s summer butterfly program involves over 60 student volunteers who each dedicate three weeks during summer vacation to act as docents in the school’s butterfly house which is open to the public. Annually, Fiero’s students give lessons about ecology and ecological restoration to over 3,000 visitors.

Fiero collaborates closely with the language arts, social studies and math teachers at this school to make the Pine Bush Project relevant to students in all subject areas and has generated impressive academic results within his own classes. A pre-test/post-test is used to determine growth in knowledge about the Pine Bush ecosystem. Average student gains are approximately 30 to 50 percent. On the Test of Integrated Process Skills given at the beginning and end of each school year, Fiero’s students have shown significant improvement with scores above national averages. Immersing his students in authentic environmental learning with real-world consequences has inspired many of Fiero’s students to pursue careers in science.