Edith Stevens Groundwater Educator Award

About the Edith Stevens Groundwater Educator Award
In 1997, The Groundwater Foundation established an award to recognize groundwater educators who understand the importance of groundwater, motivate others to protect groundwater, and lead by personal example. Edith Stevens of Cresco, Pennsylvania, received the first award at the 1997 "Priming the Pump" water educators conference in Chicago, Illinois. Edith is one of Pennsylvania’s strongest citizen advocates for protecting and preserving groundwater. Her involvement in groundwater education includes many years of service with the League of Women Voters in Pennsylvania and Water Resources Education Network (WREN). In addition, she co-directed a successful Groundwater Policy Education Project that provided small grants for local groundwater education and outreach efforts and she wrote Groundwater: A Primer For Pennsylvanians. Edith’s outstanding work for groundwater education will stand as a touchstone of the award named in her honor.

Past Award Recipients
1997: Edith Stevens, Cresco, Pennsylvania
Edith has been one of Pennsylvania’s strongest citizen advocates for protecting and preserving groundwater supplies. Her water protection efforts include involvement in the Water Resources Education Network (WREN) Project of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. Edith and Charlie Abdalla of Pennsylvania State University co-directed the successful Groundwater Policy Education Project, a small grants program for local groundwater outreach and education efforts that began in 1990. These community-based education efforts encourage citizens and local officials to build partnerships to improve local policy making for the protection of groundwater supplies.

1998: Tom Cech, Greeley, Colorado
Tom organized the first Children’s Water Festival in Colorado in 1991 and has been a strong leader in encouraging the organization of water festivals across Colorado since that time. As of 1998, there were 15 children’s water festivals held annually throughout the state of Colorado. Tom also saw the need to educate legislators, and in 1993, organized the first annual Legislative Water Festival at the State Capitol. Tom has also been instrumental in developing a statewide network of groundwater monitoring wells at schools. Working with various public and private entities, Tom has also helped to initiate and promote a K-12 water education program.

1999: Sharon Lien, Trabuco Canyon, California
Sharon is the founder of the Orange County Children’s Drinking Water Festival. During the release of A Civil Action, a movie based on the book by the same name, Sharon developed and produced a public information campaign for movie theaters and coordinated a public service advertising campaign featuring the book’s hero, Jan Schlichtmann. Under Sharon’s leadership, the city of Anaheim launched a bilingual drinking water safety campaign, and led a statewide program to promote used oil recycling. Sharon has also conducted an innovative statewide used oil recycling evaluation project assisting local agencies in evaluating the impacts of the program.

2000: Melissa Henke, Casper, Wyoming
Melissa promotes groundwater education and preservation, locally and statewide through a variety of activities. She planned, organized, and produced the first Wyoming Children’s Water Festival, bringing over 2,000 fourth and fifth grade students from throughout the state to learn about the importance of water and groundwater. She obtained funding for the festival, traveled throughout the state promoting the event, registered all students, selected and scheduled presenters and activities, coordinated all logistic support and recruited over 150 volunteers. Melissa works with educators and organizations around the state to promote water festivals in areas where travel to the state festival is impractical, or where educators want to reach students at other grade levels. Melissa also serves as the Wyoming coordinator for the International Office for Water Education’s annual water education calendar and has recently procured funding to introduce the National Energy Foundation’s "Water Wise" program into schools.

2001: Joan Jessen, McMurray, Pennsylvania
In 1991, Joan, representing the League of Women Voters of Washington County (LWVWC), helped found the Washington County Groundwater Coalition, now known as the Groundwater Coalition Education Committee of the Washington County Watershed Alliance. Joan has served as the Alliance coordinator, treasurer, and co-chair of the Education Committee, guiding volunteers to set up mall displays, conduct workshops, test homeowner drinking water, and sample streams with college interns. Joan also arranged for the Coalition to purchase groundwater flow models for all of the schools in the county and set up teacher training workshops to show them how to operate the model. In 1995, Joan coordinated The Washington County Children’s Groundwater Festival, Pennsylvania’s first groundwater festival. Held annually, the Washington County Children’s Groundwater Festival has become a model for other water festivals organized by community leaders in Pennsylvania.

2002: Dr. Robert Williams, Edwardsville, Illinois
In 1990, Dr. Williams initiated the Rivers Project, an interdisciplinary high school curriculum project centered on water. The project trains teachers to educate students on water issues in their communities through biological, chemical, and physical water monitoring and analysis; oral history; art; writing; and poetry. Dr. Williams assisted educators involved in the Rivers Project in creating an annual Student Congress. This Student Congress initiated the annual Clean Water Celebration, Illinois’ largest water festival with up to 3,500 middle school students, 500 high schools students, 250 teachers, 200 exhibitors and presenters in attendance each year. In 1992, Dr. Williams helped develop the Middle School Groundwater Project to integrate groundwater education into school curricula. Dr. Williams retired from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville in 2000, however he continues in his mission of improving water education.

2003: Patricia Welch, Tremont, Illinois
In 1991, following the enactment of the Illinois Groundwater Protection Act, Ms. Welch served on the Central Regional Groundwater Protection Committee. The committee was the state’s first committee to develop a groundwater education plan and held the first well-sealing demonstrations. The committee also established the first awards program for its four county region. Ms. Welch went on to develop an awards program for student Junior Academy of Science groundwater projects. Ms. Welch also led the first groundwater education workshop for teachers. At the workshop, teachers built groundwater models using local well logs. This workshop led to the development of the Middle School Groundwater Project which has placed over 800 groundwater models using local geology in area schools. Ms. Welch was instrumental in developing the Clean Water Celebration, an environmental classroom program and has served as a member of the planning committee for the past 10 years. Begun in 1993, the Clean Water Celebration is a two-day annual event educating middle and high school students, teachers, and the general public about water quality protection and conservation. Ms. Welch has developed educational programming, assisted in developing a program exhibition, hands-on units for the schools, and school pre and post informational and evaluation packets. Ms. Welch has also worked to develop a long range plan to insure continuation of the Clean Water Celebration.  

2004: Stuart Perlmeter, Springfield, Oregon
Mr. Perlmeter has served as the Water & Energy Learning Lab (WELL) Project Coordinator since the program’s inception in 1998. The WELL project, supported by an annual grant from the Springfield Utility Board, integrates disciplines including science, math, art, geography, and literature and is designed to enhance students’ understanding of processes for scientific inquiry and the importance of water to both their community and the world. The WELL project coordinates closely with local watershed councils and utilities, providing specially trained students that volunteer to monitor streams and storm water outflows for indicators that could affect both groundwater and surface water quality. General and Advanced Water Quality Workshops for elementary and middle school teachers conducted by Mr. Perlmeter promote understanding of what groundwater is and its importance within the community and provide specialized kits including lesson plans, data sheets, equipment and supplies for teachers and students. Mr. Perlmeter has developed a website through which students and others can become familiar with local water issues, student activities, and programs. In addition, he received a grant from the Eugene Water & Electric Board to be used by students in the 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 school years to produce a scientific documentary on water and power sources. The documentary will be used as a teaching tool for schools and organizations in addition to being aired as a public service announcement.

2005: Arlene Hanna, Lincoln, Nebraska
Arlene was instrumental in establishing the earth wellness festival. This festival was developed in 1994 in response to a petition from educators in the Lincoln, Nebraska Public School District requesting the creation of an environmental festival. Arlene coordinated a 15-member festival steering committee representing 11 local educational resource agencies. Students at the festival rotate among four 25-minute sessions focusing on water, land, air, and living resources as well as participate in a culminating activity with a featured presenter. Held in March, nearly 3,000 fifth grade students from Lincoln and Lancaster County participate in the festival each year. “Kits for Kids” a pre-festival learning kit containing curriculum, supplies, and equipment is distributed to classes scheduled to attend the festival. All activities in the kit are correlated with the Nebraska and National Science Education Standards. In 2002, Lincoln Public Schools included the earth wellness festival and the water and wetlands section of the “Kits for Kids’ activities guide as core subjects in the fifth grade science curriculum.

2006: Rhonda Artho, Dumas, Texas
In 2005, Rhonda organized and directed the first annual “Water Wonders” festival attended by over 450 fourth through sixth grade students in the North Plains Groundwater Conservation District. A second festival was held in 2006. Rhonda also designed and implemented many youth education programs, including the development of a high school social studies unit on the management of groundwater, created an elementary curriculum package, a storm drain stenciling project, and public awareness campaign with student volunteers. She conducts “Water Wise” gardening classes and assists local Girl Scout Troops in earning water badges. Acting as the current Project WET coordinator in Texas, she has trained over 65 new Project WET facilitators and conducted 12 teacher workshops. Rhonda also serves as the Texas representative on the Board of Directors of the Ogallala Aquifer Institute.

2007: No award given