Mentoring
Our
Future
Naturalists
Educating children and teachers about nature study and the environment has been at the core of what Trust for Wildlife (TFW) has promoted since its inception in 1983.
Hundreds of thousands of children have benefited from special curricula developed by TFW, including materials translated and produced for children and teachers in Russia and Latin Americas.
A very important commitment has been mentoring of middle school and senior high school students. A number of these students have been successful in pursuing their college education and careers in wildlife biology, conservation, and environmental education.
Trust For Wildlife Mentees
Kaitlyn Farrar was a Trust For Wildlife mentee through Mount Anthony Union High School (MAUHS) in her senior year, spending three half days/week on studying flora and fauna and biodiversity with Marshal Case. She helped create nature trails at Mount Anthony Union Middle School (MAUMS), put up bird boxes, and performed catch and release bird banding to track world travelers. She attended the Explorers Club annual meeting with TFW where she met the top scientists in her field and became a student member. She was awarded a TFW scholarship which covered a full year of tuition at UVM. After working for a number of years for the United States Department of Fish and Wildlife from Oregon to Montana, she graduated from the University of Montana with a Master of Public Administration.
Elisabeth (Elise) Seyferth worked with Trust For Wildlife when she was a senior at MAUHS. She was especially interested in scientific research and used mist nets for bird banding, helped with designing and placing trail signs on the Nature Trails, helped with Nature radio shows on the local station and worked as a summer intern eradicating invasives on the MAUMS and TFW lands.
Elise excelled in Biology at Dartmouth, winning a Fulbright Scholarship to the Max Planck Institute in Germany and is currently a medical student at Duke, recently winning a Schweitzer Fellowship.
Lisa Maggio was a mentee under Trust For Wildlife, and went on to enroll at Antioch University, New England in their Environmental Education program. She worked with Marshal Case on research and trail maintenance and helped at the Halifax Nature Camp.
Today she is Assistant Youth Education Director at Hildene, in Manchester, Vermont, bringing environmental education into local schools.
Trust For Wildlife Nature Camp
TFW takes pride in an annual nature camp, held at the TFW Halifax wildlife sanctuary every year. This camp, for budding naturalists, is offered free for all young residents of the Deerfield Valley. 2019 marked its 41st anniversary. The camp focuses on exploring woods, fields, and waterways, and learning about native plants and animals with a concentration on food chains and natural habitats.
Some of the past campers have become professional naturalists. But, most important, young eyes and ears have become tuned-in to the natural world.
Educational Partnering with Russia
In 1992 a very unusual opportunity came about when Marshal T Case was invited to be a presenter at the Lenin Center, in Moscow, (former) Soviet Union. This gathering took place every five years and brought together educators and scientists from across the (former) Soviet Union. Marshal's expanding Nature Adventures program, designed while heading National Audubon's education program, was reaching several million school children across the United States.
From grants raised through Trust For Wildlife, Marshal was able to lead 21 trips for 5 years as curricula were developed in English and Russian with academics from both countries. From this curricula Marshal met Nicolai Drozdov, writer and anchor of the famous Russian Television series "In the World of Animals". A close partnership was formed between Nicolai and Marshal that developed into a co-series to Nicolai's show and costarring Marshal, titled "World of Animals: Russians and Americans Working Together to Protect Nature". The co-series aired 70 shows on primetime Russian television on Saturday nights between 1988-1993, and reached more than 200 million viewers. Their friendship continues today.
Marshal Case with Nicolai Drozdov in 1988
Nicolai Drozdov on the set of "In the World of Animals"
Excerpts from Nicolai Drozdov's bio
as a Kalinga Prize Laureate
