12/11/2009
Michigan Teacher Named NWTF Educator of the Year
EDGEFIELD, S.C.— Science teacher Jon Gray, from Lake Orion, Mich., encourages his students to think outside the box... the Wild About Turkey Education Box that is.
Because he uses the National Wild Turkey Federation's (NWTF) education boxes as a teaching tool and stresses the importance of conservation and wildlife management to his 8th grade students at Waldon Middle School, Gray has been named the NWTF's Conservation Educator of the Year for 2009.
The education box is a scaled replica of the wild turkey transport box used by wildlife agencies. It is filled with teaching tools including a complete set of multi-curriculum lesson plans, a full-color bulletin board kit, an entertaining video and multimedia CD/ROM, a poster, reference material and keepsakes for the students.
"Teaching students to appreciate the outdoors is important to continue America's time-honored conservation history," said Christine Rolka, NWTF education director. "Through our Wild About Turkey Education Boxes, students learn about conservation through one of the greatest wildlife conservation stories of all time — the return of the wild turkey."
In the 1930s, wild turkey numbers were at an all-time low of 30,000 throughout North America. Since the 1950s, state and provincial wildlife agencies have moved more than 195,000 wild turkeys into suitable habitat across North America. To help restore wild turkey populations, the birds are usually trapped in areas where they are abundant and placed in specialized transport boxes, and then released in areas of suitable habitat with few or no wild turkeys.
Since the NWTF was founded in 1973, its volunteers have helped accelerate those efforts through the purchase of trapping equipment, transfer boxes and funding. Currently, there are more than 7 million wild turkeys throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Gray's students annually participate in the patch design contest for Michigan's Wild Turkey Cooperator Patch Program. This program was initiated in 1988 as a voluntary incentive for hunters to earn a cooperator patch in exchange for mailing feathers to wildlife biologists. Biologists record the age and sex of harvested wild turkeys using the feathers mailed in by cooperating hunters. After learning from the tools found in the NWTF's education boxes, his students apply their gained knowledge of wild turkeys, their habitat, appearance and behaviors to designing a patch. A student from Gray's class won the patch design contest in 2007 and another student won in 2009.
"I believe that getting our youth interested in the outdoors and shooting sports is a vital step in continuing the strong hunting tradition in Michigan," said Gray. "Exposing youngsters to archery through the schools, teaching about conservation and wildlife management, and just getting students outdoors, is important to keeping students in touch with their environment and to taking an interest in conserving it. Hopefully some of today's students will become tomorrow's turkey hunters."
Gray also leads a variety of hands-on stewardship projects in which his students apply what they have learned to design, construct and manage wildlife habitat on the school grounds. In addition, he coordinates the National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) for Waldon Middle School and provides outdoor recreation opportunities for his students.
Each year, the NWTF recognizes educators who demonstrate the most innovative use of the Wild About Turkey Education Box and also demonstrate a commitment to teaching conservation education in the classroom with its Conservation Educator of the Year award. Gray will receive a plaque and a $1,000 grant to fund a conservation education project in his classroom for next school year and will be recognized at the NWTF's 34th annual National Convention and Sport Show in February in Nashville, Tenn.
Since 1999, NWTF local chapters have donated more than 30,000 Wild About Turkey Education Boxes to educators in public schools, museums, nature centers, visitor centers and state parks nationwide.
Founded in 1973, the NWTF is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of the wild turkey and the preservation of our hunting heritage. Through dynamic partnerships with state, federal and provincial wildlife agencies, the NWTF and its members have helped restore wild turkey populations across the country, raised and spent more than $286 million, and conserved nearly 14 million acres of habitat for all types of wildlife.
For more information about the NWTF call (800) THE-NWTF or visit www.nwtf.org.
