Texas Wildlife Association's Conservation Legacy program recognized

SAN ANTONIO –The Texas Association for Environmental Education has named the Texas Wildlife Association's Conservation Legacy program as the winner of its 2009 Outstanding Environmental Achievement Award for an organization making an impact on environmental education in Texas.

“Knowing that the future of Texas’ natural resources rests in the hands of  today’s youth, TWA has worked tirelessly to ensure that these future leaders have the opportunity to experience nature,” Koy Coffer, TWA Education Program Specialist said.  “Experience is the ultimate teacher.  Holding a frog in your hand or studying the parts of a flower in a meadow is certainly different than just reading about it.  People make emotional and intellectual investments in things they can touch, see, and smell.” 

TWA’ Conservation Legacy program is multi-faceted and is designed to provide educational programs highlighting the benefits of voluntary private land stewardship for all citizens of Texas.  For the younger students there are Distance Learning programs via video conference, hands-on Discovery Trunks and Wildlife Learning Modules, as well as a mini-magazine called Critter Connections.  The Learning Across New Dimensions in Science (L.A.N.D.S.) Youth Stewardship Initiative is designed for middle school students and uses native Texas species and systems to complement science curricula.  Texas Brigades is a summer leadership development program for youth ages 13-17.  For the adults, the Conservation Legacy program organizes teacher workshops, landowner field days, symposia on various conservation issues, and trainings to equip conservation ambassadors.

In the 2008-09 school year, Conservation Legacy programs reached 43,236 students and teachers in districts across Texas.  The adult education program and other special events reached an additional 28,000 participants.

Through the years, the program’s success can be traced to its original mission of creating natural resource literacy through active involvement such as “putting yellow school buses on ranches.” 

As Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Wood, a best-seller that brought nature deficit disorder to the country’s attention, said, “TWA, before the book came out, I believe, was already focused on getting yellow school buses onto ranches, which is a terrific goal.  I think that your Conservation Legacy program, your Texas Brigades program, are just incredibly good and need to be replicated around the country.  What you’re doing is extraordinarily important, and Texas, in many ways, is a leader in this.”