Int’l Paper and The Conservation Fund Now Accepting Nominations for Annual Environmental Awards

Last year’s 2006 IP Environmental Education Award went to Laura Patterson, of Los Alamos, N.M. Patterson has served as an educator for 17 years across the U.S., and was honored for developing an innovative response to a local catastrophe. The Cerro Grande Fire that destroyed more than 40,000 acres and displaced nearly 430 families in 2000 moved her to lead students and fellow teachers in the restoration and improvement of the fire-damaged Quemazon Nature Trail. She wrote an interdisciplinary, field-based forest ecology curriculum combining forestry, biology and geology that was later adopted by other schools in northern New Mexico and recognized nationally. So far, more than 1,500 students from 12 regional schools have participated in the program.