The KAEE Excellence Awards recognize the outstanding achievements of individuals, organizations, agencies, community efforts, schools, and businesses in the field of EE. The nominee must have an earnest involvement in the field of EE, and have made and continues to make significant contributions to EE in Kentucky. 

Lee Newbury, lifetime achievement award

Lee Newbury, former middle-school science and math teacher at Model Laboratory School, has been a strong advocate of— and practitioner of—environmentalism and environmental education for more than four decades. 

Early in her career, Ms. Newbury taught in Florida, and she emphasized the role of the ocean in the local environment and as part of the global environment. She worked with students in a summer program that allowed them to focus on environmental issues, and she brought the concept of the program with her to Kentucky, adapting it to the local environment and its particular issues. 

When she began her tenure at Model, she embraced the outdoor classroom, an area of the school campus dedicated to local flora and fauna. She, along with other science colleagues and some elementary teachers, focused on maintaining this area to allow students to have hands-on lessons with living specimens and to study the interaction of elements within an environment. In addition, Ms. Newbury created Wildside, an interactive unit for her middle-school students that asked each student to choose an animal to research and then present their information to their peers and to elementary students; the students would create costumes and dress as their chosen animals for the presentations, and they would present the information and answer questions. The project was very popular and helped students better understand their world. 

Throughout her career as an educator, Ms. Newbury practiced what she preached. Not only did she teach about environmentalism, but she practiced it within her classroom as well, creating meta-lessons that reinforced her ideas. Lee Newbury has dedicated her life to educating kids about their world and their place in that world. She has constantly and consistently challenged her students to explore the world and to strive to make it a better place by preserving it. 

“Besides my teaching and advocating for environmental issues,” she says, “it has been important to me to share my knowledge and leadership abilities in the area of environmental literacy.” She has done so in countless ways, including serving multiple terms on both the KAEE and Kentucky Science Teachers Association (KSTA) Boards; by facilitating workshops for pre-service teachers, non-formal and formal educators, and other citizen groups using a number of environmental curricula (Project Wild, Project WET, and more); creating and facilitating summer Envirowatch camps through EKU's Community Education Programs; and presenting on a variety of science related topics at the annual conferences of KAEE and KSTA.

Carmen agouridis, m.k. dickerson award

Anyone who has seen the pollinator gardens dotting the University of Kentucky's campus, noticed the outdoor classroom at Cassidy Elementary, or enjoyed the restoration of Vaughn's Branch Creek along Lexington’s Alumni Drive has seen some of Dr. Carmen Agouridis' projects. What may not be as visible to the public, however, is the extensive work she does both at the University of Kentucky and across the state to bring environmental education to life. A PhD and Professional Engineer, Dr. Agouridis has a remarkable gift for making even the most nuanced ecological concepts accessible to her audience.

In 2018, Dr. Agouridis organized a Master Naturalist program for Kentucky, the first in the state. Though still in its infancy, this program, with its focus on training environmental stewards who will in turn become valuable assets to Kentucky's natural areas, has the potential to generate new resources and opportunities for environmental education for years to come. And although the program is indeed a powerful collaboration between educators from a variety of environmentally-related fields, Dr. Agouridis is deserving of a special commendation for the work she has done to make this possible. 

Ashley mike, rising star award

​In her short tenure as the Program Director of the Environmental Education Leadership Corps, Ashley Mike has proven her dedication to the environmental education field by developing and improving the EELCorps program. She has established and improved policies and procedures that meet or exceed the federal and state guidelines for AmeriCorps programs while consistently providing the members of the EELCorps with professional, emotional, and practical support to ensure their success and enhance their ability to increase the capacity of the service sites to improve the environmental literacy of the citizens of all ages through quality EE programming. 

​Ashley is fully committed to ensuring that the members of the EELCorps have training and support beyond their national service as AmeriCorps members and strives to equip them with tools and skills that will serve them beyond their EELCorps obligations so that they feel empowered and confident to seek full-time employment as professional environmental educators if they so desire. She has provided trainings and materials to help the members in areas like resume writing and interviewing skills. 

Beyond supporting the members themselves, Ashley has proven to be an invaluable resource for the environmental education service providers who serve as service sites by providing resources and advice about best practices and practical ways to utilize the members to help with the sites’ missions. She has developed excellent systems, provided high quality training in support of members and sites, and has set a standard of excellence her members and sites can aspire to. She also shows an excellent attention to detail and great passion for the work.

​(Ashley herself got her start in EE as an AmeriCorps VISTA at Berea's Forestry Outreach Center!)

highlands high school, outstanding
​prek-12 school

Highlands High School has earned a reputation as an institution that provides opportunities for students to learn about the environment across disciplines as well as participate in extracurricular opportunities. The school offers AP Environmental Science to all students, participates in the International Envirothon Competition, and has an active Green Club. 

AP Environmental Science has been offered at Highlands for the past ten years; students are tested on the College Boards AP curriculum in May and have maintained more than a 60 percent pass rate. Students in APES are also given the opportunity to do fieldwork, such as visiting a local creek and doing an extensive watershed study or analyzing energy use at home or a local business. Students have visited wastewater treatment plants, nature preserves, mitigation sites, power plants, recycling plants, and other facilities to learn firsthand the processes and problems that are connected to the environment. 

Students are also involved in service-learning, including planting a pollinator garden at the Harlan Hubbard Studio and designing low-impact strategies on the high school campus and building rain gardens to collect runoff. In addition, students have completed passion projects—from learning to make plastic yarn out of plastic grocery store bags and weaving those into mats to growing milkweed and handing out information and plants about the Monarch Butterfly. 

Every year, Highlands High students participate in the Jim Claypool writing contest with the Campbell County Conservation district; each year for the past several years, numerous regional and at least one state winner have been from Highlands High.

​Highlands also has two extracurricular opportunities that relate to environmental education. The school’s Green Club focuses on sustainability and other issues the group selects from year to year. They have been actively running the school’s recycling program, which first involved acquiring the bins from the waste management company and now centers on distributing and collecting the items every week. Students have also been involved with the Earth Day Celebration at Tower Park, leading nature walks and tree identification games. Finally, the school’s Envirothon Team was established in 2010 and has grown to have two teams compete each year.

louisville olmsted parks conservancy, outstanding community partner

Over the course of many years, the Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy has educated thousands of adults and children through well organized and informative volunteer events aimed at restoring native forests and riparian areas in Louisville’s urban parks. In addition, college students have the opportunity to participate in the Conservancy’s internship programs, receiving academic credit and professional experience in environmental studies prior to graduation.

​In the past year, the Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy has taken steps to expand environmental education programming through the implementation of a new strategic plan. As part of this plan, the conservancy established a new, full-time staff position dedicated to coordinating and managing education programming. Among the new programs added in the last year are free, guided walking tours of various Olmsted Parks, seasonal festivals that invite visitors to explore the parks in a new way, and nature-play events for children. The Conservancy’s partnership with Bellarmine University in particular has grown through collaborative development of experiential environmental education projects that have been implemented as part of course curricula.

maker's mark distillery, outstanding business

At Maker’s Mark, the team utilizes their property in a unique way to spread the word on environmental sustainability. 

Jason Nally, Star Hill Farm Environmental Champion at Maker’s Mark, says the “most impactful educational experiences we have been working on this year are our outreach opportunities for our employees, consumers, and customers. During most weeks, I lead groups to our lakes and through the forest discussing water quality, watershed management, native plants, importance of pollinators, forest management strategies, invasive species, and wildlife conservation.” 

​These groups typically include Maker’s Mark brand ambassadors, members of the media, bartenders, store owners, sales reps, and distributors. “By highlighting the work we are doing,” Nally says, “these folks can utilize the narrative as tools to help promote bourbon, thereby engaging in a conversation about the natural resources necessary for the creating our product.”

In his role, Nally also leads staff trainings at “some of the best cocktail bars in New York, New Jersey, and Chicago, he says. “These bartenders and distributors can now not only discuss the rich history and heritage of bourbon but also the resource sustainability measures so necessary to ensure the maintained growth of bourbon.”

During the distillery’s employee “Town Halls,” employees are also taught about sustainable forestry, benefits of recycling, and negatives of single use plastics; the goal of these sessions is an increased culture of sustainability not only at work but in employees’ homes as well. 

​And this fall, Maker’s Mark will welcome all of the teachers from Marion County High School for an in-service day, where they will complete a Project Leopold workshop. “We hope to make this an annual event that will reach all of the local and regional schools and provide them with age appropriate EE curriculum to take back to their schools,” Nally says. “I think it would be pretty awesome if every kid who graduates from Marion County High School has read The Sand County Almanac!”

Excellence in ee awards

2019 award winners

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