VIVIAN BOWLES WINS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

2020 marks ten years since Vivian Bowles became a member of KAEE, though she has been an EE enthusiast for so much longer. Since then, she has told numerous groups—from PEEC students to her fellow Board of Director members to workshop participants—that when she attended her first KAEE conference a decade ago, she knew she had “found her tribe.”

Her tribe has certainly benefited from that relationship, and perhaps never more so than this year, when Vivian unhesitatingly agreed to team up with Brittany Wray and Melinda Wilder to correlate more than one hundred Project Learning Tree and Project WILD activities to the NGSS. This year, she also stepped in as KAEE’s treasurer, and she continued her role as an instructor for two Professional Environmental Educator Certification workshops.

“Vivian has been an invaluable part of what we do at KEEC,” says Wesley Bullock, environmental education specialist at the Kentucky Environmental Education Council (KEEC). “She was named Teacher of the Year for our Kentucky Green & Healthy Schools program in 2016 for her outstanding work with Kit Carson Elementary students. She has gone from graduate of the Professional Environmental Educator Certification program to our newest instructor. And she was integral to the revisions of the Kentucky Environmental Literacy Plan. We appreciate her so much, and we are so glad she is being celebrated with this award!”

Vivian herself is not only a certified Kentucky Professional Environmental Educator but reached “Master Environmental Educator” status last year. She is also a trained “Projects” facilitator and frequently leads workshops in Projects WET, WILD, and Learning Tree. After her retirement from Madison County Schools, she was recruited to do STEM enrichment with first- and second-grade students and their teachers on a part-time basis and has developed and teaches NGSS-style units of study at Kit Carson Elementary.

In 2014, Vivian was named the Elementary Science Teacher of the Year by the Kentucky Science Teachers Association, and two years later, she received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. The next year, she received our own M.K. Dickerson Outstanding Educator Award.

“Vivian has always been a supporter and practitioner of environmental education,” says Billy Bennett, executive director. “She is an invaluable resource for students of all ages in the Commonwealth.”

Anyone who has been fortunate enough to attend one of her workshops or sit on a board with her knows that Vivian is also one of the warmest, most caring, and most enthusiastic educators out there. She motivates others to listen, to watch, to think, to read, and to teach. She found “her people” ten years ago, she says, at a KAEE conference, and at that conference, “her people” gained an EE leader, an EE champion, and an EE all-star.

KAEE'S 2020 RISING STAR IN EE: MADDY HEREDIA

Maddy Heredia, the first full-time environmental educator in the 40-year history of Kentucky Nature Preserves, has been named the recipient of Kentucky Association for Environmental Education’s 2020 Excellence in EE Rising Star Award.

In her first year at Kentucky Nature Preserves, Maddy initiated new partnerships with natural areas throughout the state for field trips, oversaw new citizen science projects, expanded the organization’s social media presence, created interpretive signage, and developed KNP's Kentucky Nature Summit, the largest multi-agency EE event in the agency’s history.

“I feel that now more than ever, it is crucial to educate the public on our natural resources and the threat of losing them in the near future,” Maddy says. “By exposing more and more people to breathtaking views, interesting plants and animals, and conservation work, I hope to instill a new appreciation of the environment and sense of responsibility to take care of it.”

She says an especially rewarding aspect of her work is interacting with children in school groups, summer camps, and underserved communities, offering them experience they might not have been exposed to otherwise.

“I grew up in Chicago in a very urban environment,” she says, “and I credit a lot of my passion for conservation to key people in my life that gave me experiences in the outdoors at a very young age.

For me, it is so amazing to hear a child tell you that they want to be a herpetologist when they grow up, after I’ve showed them a salamander for the first time.”

Zeb Weese, Kentucky Nature Preserves' Executive Director, says Maddy continually completes her work “with a smile and positive attitude. She is an incredible ambassador for Kentucky's biodiversity and natural areas.”

RAE MCENTYRE APPOINTED TO THE EPA'S NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION ADVISORY COUNCIL

Kentucky Association for Environmental Education board of directors member Rae McEntyre has been appointed to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Environmental Education Advisory Council! During her one-year appointment, McEntyre will serve as a special government employee and will provide independent advice based on her expertise in planning, developing, and implementing science-based education programs. ​ The National Environmental Education Advisory Council provides advice and counsel on the implementation of the National Environmental Education Act of 1990. It is organized under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which regulates and governs its operation, including public participation and access to documents. McEntyre, Kentucky Department of Education science consultant, is a Certified Professional Environmental Educator and serves on several KAEE board of directors sub-committees. She has more than 30 years of experience as a science educator, which includes 20 years in the classroom. We are thrilled that she will now be able to share her outstanding EE expertise on a national level as well!