Award Recipients
Each year we rededicate ourselves to our mission by honoring some of our own outstanding real live, environmental super heroes.
This year our Board of Directors chose to present four awards, honoring those who have demonstrated extraordinary environmental stewardship, helping to protect and preserve the natural balance and beauty of our land and actively put forth a significant effort in making the world a better place.
Captain Planet Exemplar Award
The world’s foremost oceanographer and sea warrior, Dr. Sylvia Earle.
In 1966 Sylvia Earle received her Ph.D. from Duke. Her dissertation “Phaeophyta of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico” created a sensation in the oceanographic community. Never before had a marine scientist made such an extensively detailed study of aquatic plant life. Since then she has made a lifelong project of cataloguing every species of plant that can be found in the Gulf of Mexico, Dr. Earle then went on to Harvard as a research fellow and then to the resident directorship of the Cape Haze Marine Laboratory, in Florida .In 1968,even though she was four months pregnant, Dr. Earle traveled to a hundred feet below the waters of the Bahamas in the submersible Deep Diver.
In 1969 she applied to participate in the Tektite project. This venture, sponsored jointly by the U.S. Navy, the Department of the Interior and NASA allowed teams of scientist to live for weeks at a time in an enclosed habitat on the ocean floor fifty feet below the surface, off the Virgin Islands. By this time, Sylvia had spent more than a thousand research hours underwater, more than any other scientists who applied to the program, but, as she says, “the people in charge just couldn’t cope with the idea of men and women living together underwater.”
The result was Tektite II, Mission 6, an all-female research expedition led by Dr. Earle herself. In 1970, Sylvia Earle and four other women dove 50 feet below the surface to the small structure they would call home for the next two weeks. In the 1970s, scientific missions took Sylvia Earle to the Galapagos, to the water off Panama, to China and the Bahamas and, again, to the Indian Ocean. During this period she began a productive collaboration with undersea photographer Al Giddings. Together, they investigated the battleship graveyard in the Caroline Islands of the South Pacific.
In the 1980s, along with engineer Graham Hawkes, she started the companies Deep Ocean Engineering and Deep Ocean Technologies. These ventures design and build undersea vehicles like Deep Rover and Deep Flight which are making it possible for scientists to maneuver at depths that defied all previously existing technology. In the middle of this life of adventure, Sylvia Earle has been married and raised three children, some of whom have worked side by side with her at Deep Ocean Engineering
In the early 1990s, Dr. Earle took a leave of absence from her companies to serve as Chief Scientist of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. There, among other duties, Sylvia Earle was responsible for monitoring the health of the nation’s waters. In this capacity she also reported on the environmental damage wrought by Iraq’s burning of the Kuwaiti oil fields.
Among the more than 100 national and international honors she has received is the 2009 TED Prize for her proposal to establish a global network of marine protected areas. She calls these marine preserves “hope spots, to save and restore the blue heart of the planet.”
Today, Dr. Earle is Explorer in Residence at the National Geographic Society. She recently led the Google Ocean Advisory Council, a team of 30 marine scientists providing innovative content and scientific oversight for the “Ocean in Google Earth.” A lover and protector of our oceans, she has led over 70 expeditions, logging more than 6500 hours underwater.
CAPTAIN PLANET SUPER HERO FOR EARTH AWARD
Emmy Award Winner, Television Personality and lifelong champion for the Planet, Jeff Corwin.
Since his early childhood, Jeff Corwin has worked for the conservation of endangered species and ecosystems around the globe. Presently, Jeff is executive producer and host of Ocean Mystries which is being broadcasted nationally on ABC. In addition to exploring the state of our planet’s oceans and marine life, Jeff is a correspondent for science, the environment and nature for MSNBC and NBC news. Beyond television Jeff has partnered with the Wittaker Center to produce and present a major large format film called Expedition Chesapeak. For that past 16 years, Jeff has hosted a variety of popular television series and specials, including Animal Planet’s Jeff Corwin Experience, Giant Monsters, Realm of the Yeti, Corwin’s Quest, Spring Watch USA, Snake-Tacular, and King of the Jungle; Disney’s Going Wild with Jeff Corwin; Investigation Earth with the Discovery Networks; NBC’s Jeff Corwin Unleashed, which was nominated four times for an Emmy and for which Corwin won an Emmy for Outstanding Host; and the Travel Channel’s Into Alaska and Into the American West. For the Discovery Health Channel Jeff hosted Pets and People, the Power of the Health Connection. His popular television series have been broadcasted in over 130 countries worldwide. He also created and co-presented CNN’s Planet in Peril with Anderson Cooper in 2007. On November 20th 2008, Animal Planet premiered The Vanishing Frog. This powerful documentary highlights Jeff’s year long, global odyssey exploring the mass extinction of our planet’s important amphibian species. In November of 2009, Jeff executive produced and presented 100 Heartbeats. Produced for the NBC networks, this groundbreaking documentary investigated the plight of our planet’s most endangered wildlife species along with the conservation heroes trying to save them.
In October 2009, Jeff partnered once again with Rodale to publish 100 Heartbeats, whose mission, as with the accompanying NBC documentary, is to connect the readers with our planets most endangered species. 100 Heartbeats received great reviews from both critics and the conservation community and is now on its way to paperback for fall 2010. Jeff’s book, Living on the Edge, Amazing Relationships in the Natural World was published 2004 and is now its 5th addition. Through Penguin Books, Jeff is publishing a series of books for younger readers focusing on wildlife, ecology and conservation under the brand of The Jeff Corwin Jr. Explorer Series. The mission of this well-received book series is to build a stong sense of environmental stewardship amongst our nation’s young people. Examples from this 10 book series include – Your Backyard is Wild, Animals and Habitats of the Southwest, the Great Alaska Adventure, The Wild Wild West, A Whale of a Tail, The Great Everglades Adventure, and Snakes.
Jeff’s wildlife and conservation work has been regularly featured on a variety of television
series including CNN, FOX, Good Morning America, The Today Show, CBS Morning Show, Ellen Degeneres, The Bonnie Hunt Show, Rachael Maddows,The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O’Brian, Regis and Kelly and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Jeff was cast as himself on CSI Miami, named one of People Magazine’s “Most Beautiful People” and Entertainment Weekly‘s “It List”. Men’s Journal recognized Jeff as the world’s greatest host of a natural history series.
Beyond wildlife and conservation, Jeff is a passionate explorer of human culture especially as it connects to regional cuisine, that is produced in a sustainable manner. His interests in renewable and sustainable living, along with how food is often the glue that cements together a community and culture, recently premiered in a Food Network series called Extreme Cuisine with Jeff Corwin.
A native of Massachusetts, Jeff has established an interactive museum and environmental education center called the EcoZone. Based in Norwell, Massachusetts, the goal of the EcoZone is to build awareness for the wildlife and ecology unique to the wetlands of southeastern Massachusetts. In 2008, Jeff was named Ambassador of Climate Change and Endangered Species on behalf of the Defenders of Wildlife, one of the United States most prominent conservation organizations. He has B.S. degrees in both Biology and Anthropology from Bridgewater State College, a M.S. in Wildlife and Fisheries Conservation from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and an honorary doctorate in Public Education from Bridgewater State College. When not traveling the world, Jeff can be found at his home off the coast of Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife, Natasha, and two daughters, Maya Rose and Marina Faye.
CAPTAIN PLANET YOUNG SUPER HERO FOR EARTH AWARD
Activist and Student Leader – Eric Estroff
Eric Estroff has served as the Green Schools Alliance’s National Student Coordinator since 2009. He is also the U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s appointed Green School Program Coordinator for the GSA’s Student Climate and Conservation Congress (Sc3). The mission of the Sc3 is “to empower outstanding student environmental leaders with the skills, knowledge and tools necessary to address natural resource challenges and better serve their schools and communities.”
In his U.S Green School Program position, Estroff coordinated the nomination and application process of hundreds of students across the nation. He handled all forms, travel arrangements and logistics for the 100 final student fellows and 20 faculty. Fellows this year represented 35 states and five countries. Estroff also chaired the financial aid committee and oversaw the allocation of $15,000 worth of of scholarships.
He won the 2010 Joseph A. Piehuta Prize from the National Conservation Training Center for his contribution to Sc3. The prize recognizes a US Green School Fellow who has demonstrated exemplary leadership that furthers conservation and climate awareness on a global scale. Eric also received the Atlanta InTown Magazine’s Top 20 Under 20 Award for outstanding service to the Atlanta community that same year.
Eric is a senior at Pace Academy and serves as student body vice president, yearbook co-editor-in-chief, executive service leader and the chair of the Sustainability Club. He also coordinates the Green Cup Challenge, a month-long, school-wide challenge to schools to reduce energy consumption, for over 30 schools in Georgia.
PLANET GREEN SCHOOL AWARD
Creating great stewards of our next generation – Arabia Mountain High School
Arabia Mountain High School (AMHS) is the first public school in the state of Georgia to achieve LEED Certification, obtaining the Silver Certification. AMHS hosts the Dekalb County School System’s Environmental Energy and Engineering Program, and has used the Environment as an Integrated Context (EIC) model to improve student achievement by using the local natural and community surroundings as a context for learning. The EIC model provides students with a more hands-on experience and allows them to gain a better understanding of the connections between the subjects they study in school and the world outside their school walls. Each grade level is assigned a year-long inquiry question around which all of their studies focus. Arabia Mountain High School students, teachers, administrators, and parents go above and beyond to connect to their environment and make great stewards of our next generation.
