2009 - WOW what a year!  We delivered our message of  “Take a minute to be in it” to students and their families and teachers from Texas to New York!  This was a very busy year - the first in which we had workshops, speaking engagements, events, or school visits booked every month of the year except for February and December.

This was a good year for TV and radio, too. My favorite media experience was working with the crew from WITF in Harrisburg, PA. Doing a PSA for the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) which run the Pennsylvania State Parks was a blast! It’s posted here:

Another highlight of my year was meeting and working with Akiima Price, Chief of Education and Programs at the New York Restoration Project (NYRP). I look forward to doing some teacher workshops with them in 2010. It’s exciting to see what she is doing to help urban students get outdoors and experience nature, grow gardens, and explore their neighborhoods.

I made lots of new friends and reconnected with some old such as Mary DeAngelis who I met a few years ago when she attended my session at the PA Governor’s Institute for Environment and Ecology. I was delighted to learn that she is now the Environmental Educator for Spring-Ford school district in Royersford, PA, supporting several schools. She is helping teachers to gain confidence to teach nature studies when they don’t have a science background. She’s bringing new programs to her schools and getting students into the outdoors. Every school district needs an environmental education specialist like Mary DeAngelis!

Business ran a little smoother this year thanks to Becky Prante, our Events Coordinator. Becky traveled with me to schools and events and our road trips were so much fun! She’s a college student and won’t be with us forever but I sure have enjoyed (and will continue to) the time that she is here.

We exceeded many goals this year but didn’t meet them all. Book sales were down but book sales were down across the publishing world. I was truly hoping to get our TV program on TV this year but the public television stations lost so much of their funding new programs weren’t in their plans for 2009. I missed a fabulous opportunity to go kayaking with Cindy Duncan of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation at her workshop for educators. I sure hope she invites me again this year. I’m so sorry I missed the trip.

I’d like to end the year focusing on a single accomplishment. I personally managed to address more than 15,000 people in person with my programs at schools, events, workshops and speaking engagements. If we add to that my tv and radio work, magazine articles and interviews, web blogs and interviews, book sales, all of my outreach efforts we’re probably (easily) over 100,000 people. But that’s not enough. I think the measure of a conservationist is the number of people he reaches. So next year, I’d like to make it 500,000 people. Please help me to reach more people by inviting your friends to join my fan page on Facebook, to subscribe to my blog and to follow me on Twitter. I promise to keep postings fresh and relevant to environmental education and children and the outdoors.

I’d also like to end the year by thanking the schools and organizations listed here for inviting me to speak. I hope to visit some of them again next year. And I hope that everyone remembers to “Take a minute to be in it”.

Thanks to:

New York:

Livingston Manor ES in Livingston

Pennsylvania:

Hillendale ES in Chadds Ford

Simmons ES in Horsham

Evans ES in Limerick

Earl ES in Boyertown

Bridge of Hope in Lancaster and Coatesville

The Garden Federation of Pennsylvania in Bedford

The Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville

The North American Bluebird Society

Audubon of PA, Mill Grove

North Umberland Conservation District

REI store opening in Pittsburgh

Barnes & Nobel in Exton and Oxford Valley

WXPN Kids Corner

New Jersey:

Winfield ES in Winfield

JFK ES Raritan

Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center, Millville

New Jersey Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators

Burlington County Earthfest

Camden Children’s Garden, Camden

Delaware:

Highlands ES, Wilmington

Wilmington Charter School

New Castle County Libraries

New Castle County Master Gardeners Club in Newark

Virginia

Booker T Washington ES, Newport News

Mary Munford ES in Richmond

The Mariner Museum

Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens, Richmond

Bucks County Science Teachers Association

The Chesapeake Experience, Richmond

 Texas:

Florence Elementary School (compliments of Real School Gardens)