Local teacher wins national environmental award
William Bauress, a Special School Teacher from Palatine Special School in Worthing, West Susssex, has won an Earthwatch Environmental Award for Primary Teachers and the opportunity to join leading scientists on a field research project in the UK.
The Earthwatch Environmental Awards for Primary Teachers, launched in December 2002, are open to all primary school teachers and conservation educators in the UK and are part of a national award scheme run by the international environmental charity Earthwatch and supported by a donation from GlaxoSmithKline.
Twenty teachers have won awards this year by successfully demonstrating how this scheme would benefit their teaching and the wider community.
On Earthwatch's Butterflies and Bush Crickets project, William will be given training in field research, plant identification, and the recording of data. He will then help to compare green lanes, narrow roads, hedgerows, grass banks and un-cropped land around coastal farmland, as habitat for the great green bush-cricket. He will also help to track butterflies, and, carry out manipulative experiments by making 'green lanes' from plastic windbreak and recording changes in abundance.
The results of the project will provide the information needed to help local organisations conserve green lanes, regenerate field boundaries, and improve habitat for the great green bush-cricket in its stronghold, and butterflies in the wider countryside.
William says, 'I am very excited about receiving this award and getting the opportunity to undertake hands on, worthwhile research. I enjoy a challenge and I am very much looking forward to getting out in the field and gaining practical skills. I hope to use the resulting Earthwatch grant to raise environmental awareness within my School.'
Sharon Williams, Head of Environmental Engagement at Earthwatch, says, 'This is the second year for these important awards that give teachers and conservation educators the chance to look at environmental issues in a way that is inspiring and immediate. This enables them to go back to their classrooms and communities with increased awareness about conservation and with new ideas, creating a network of ambassadors for the environment.'
William will also be given a £125 Community Action Grant to design and develop a conservation project in his school or community.
For details about the 2005 Earthwatch Environmental Awards for Primary Teachers, please contact: Julie Mackay, Programme Office, Environmental Engagement, Telephone: 01865 318826, fax: 01865 311 383 or email: awards@earthwatch.org.uk
Editors Notes