Dr. Dennis L. Kirwood Honored by Chesapeake Bay Foundation

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The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has named Dr. Dennis L. Kirkwood, the supervisor of science for Harford County Public Schools and an Harford Land Trust director, one of its two 2002 Environmental Educators of the Year.
 
The three-state conservation organization also honored, along with Dr. Kirkwood, Ann M. Regn, environmental education coordinator for Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality. For the title Conservationist of the Year the foundation named Robert N. Whitescarver of Swoope, Virginia, who is supervisor for four U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service Centers in Virginia's Shenandoah region. Mr. Whitescarver is credited with securing over 120 Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program contracts covering 1,185 acres, 100 miles of forested buffers and 70 acres of restored wetlands. 

  The foundation cited Dr. Kirkwood for influencing thousands of students and hundreds of science teachers in his years as an educator since 1974 and science supervisor since 1998. Under his leadership about 15,000 Harford county school children every year, kindergarten through 12th grade, have had "in-the-field" environmental education opportunities, often in collaboration with the foundation's field programs.
 
In the Junior and Senior years in Harford high schools, Environmental Science is an elective chosen by over 50 percent of the county's students. For seven out of the past 12 years Harford students have won Maryland's Envirothon, a competition similar to a spelling or geography bee. (The programs supervised by Dr. Kirkwood are described in the Harford Land Trust News for Winter 2002, Vol. 6 Issue 3. )  H. Turney McKnight, a trustee of Chesapeake Bay Foundation and an Harford Land Trust director, described Dr. Kirkwood as teaching "not only in the classroom, but also by example. People like this," he added, "are absolutely critical if the Bay is to weather the growth pressures along its banks and tributaries in rapidly changing places like Harford County."
 
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation established the Environmental Educator of the Year award in 1997 "to recognize an individual in the field of education who has contributed significantly to the understanding of the Bay ecosystem through an academic program.
 
At a banquet at Washington's Sequoia restaurant on January 22 the foundation presented its honorees for 2202 with bronze osprey sculptures by Eastern Shore artist David H. Turner. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is the nation's largest regional environmental organization with 110,000 active members, 150 full-time employees and a $15 million annual budget, 95 percent privately raised.

Last Updated ( Friday, 22 June 2007 )