News Release No. 392

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES HONORS
THREE TEACHERS FROM SOUTHWEST MISSOURI

Volume 32-392

Contact: Candy Schilling

(For immediate release)

573-522-9913

JEFFERSON CITY, MO, DEC. 1, 2004 -- The Missouri Department of Natural Resources will present the 2004 Water Education Award to three Ozarks area high school teachers for their efforts to educate their students about water quality issues. The awards will be presented at 7:30 a.m. during the Dec. 3 meeting of the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks. The meeting will be held at the Midtown Carnegie Branch Library, 397 East Central, Springfield, Mo.

Mike Collins began the Reeds Spring High School Stream Team in 1993 and soon had students conducting monitoring on Railey Creek. They gathered biological, chemical and bacterial information and shared their findings with the community as well as their state representatives. Collins also developed a recycling project that reduces, recycles and reuses the wastes generated by Reeds Spring School District. Collins is an advisor for a watershed committee and works closely with the Stone County Soil and Water District.

Geri Brown of Strafford High School has been taking students to local creeks for more than 15 years. She became an active volunteer monitor in 1996 when she began training her high school students to collect accurate data. Her Stream Team #210 has been involved with educational events, recruiting, workshops, writing articles for the newspaper, litter pick-ups, watershed inventories and putting up displays at local events. She is also involved with Project Wet teaching methods, recycling and the Science Club at Strafford High School.

Willard High School teacher Diane Crain began monitoring in 1994. Over the past 10 years, her Stream Team has donated more than 2,000 hours to the protection of streams in the Willard area. Crain is also head of the high school Science Club and is very much involved with community outreach. Her students are helping with research work that Drury University is doing on Stockton Lake. Beyond water conservation, Crain is in charge of all school recycling, caving field trips and fishing trips for students.

The Water Education Award was created to help commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. The department rotates the award between high school and middle school teachers each year. For more information, contact Priscilla Stotts with the Water Protection Program at 573-751-1300.

For more information about the Water Protection Program, please visit www.dnr.mo.gov/wpscd/wpcp.

For department news releases on the Web, visit www.dnr.mo.gov/newsrel. For a complete listing of the department's upcoming events, meetings and hearings, visit our online calendar at www.dnr.mo.gov/calendar/search.do.

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