Mass Audubon Honors 2025 Conservation Teachers of the Year

Mass Audubon, the largest nature conservation organization in New England, honored four teachers from across the Commonwealth as 2025 Conservation Teachers of the Year at its Annual Celebration on October 30.

The winners are selected by Mass Audubon staff for their commitment to nature-based education and for helping students forge meaningful and lasting connections with the natural world. They receive $1,000 each to support ongoing engagement with their students and in the field.

The 2025 recipients are:

Madison Gale, 7/8^th grade—Springfield Legacy Academy
Madison reached out to Mass Audubon because she sought to enrich the curriculum available to her students in Springfield. For the last three years, she has been a tireless advocate and collaborator who always strives to give her students more. From organizing school science fairs and creating climate-focused projects that get kids outside and immersed in nature, Madison’s advocacy and willingness to go the extra mile for her students has made her beloved and trusted by all.

Colleen Cutting, 7/8^th grade—Worcester East Middle School
Over the past three years, Colleen has never stopped creating opportunities for hands-on learning related to climate and biodiversity for her students. She supported the relaunch of an afterschool program for students that engaged 80 kids and connected them to green and blue spaces in their community. She also helped revamp field trips to Broad Meadow Brook Wildlife Sanctuary to allow students to analyze sections of the brook to examine ecological impacts and how they impact the communities in which they live.

Amy Jones, Kindergarten—Barnstable Community Innovation School
Amy doesn’t just bring her students to Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary to look at pretty birds, she builds a foundation prior to the visit so they are better prepared to connect deeply and meaningfully to the wildlife they see in their community. Her students know where animals get their food, the anatomy of birds, and the interdependence of wildlife and their habitat before they even enter the Mass Audubon classroom. Amy’s commitment to her students is cultivating future generations of environmental stewards via increased access to nature and nature education.

Brita Dempsey, Mass Envirothon
For more than 15 years, Brita championed Mass Envirothon, a year-long natural resource, community-based competition for high school students, and prioritized reaching students in underserved communities to set up schoolyard forest plots that now collect forest indicator data. She also worked with various environmental nonprofits to ensure her students had meaningful interactions with professionals studying soil, wildlife, water, and forestry as well as urban planners, energy professionals, and Indigenous land stewards. Her dedication to connecting students to the environment has shaped countless lives and career trajectories.

“Each of these educators has taken the most crucial environmental issues and made them relevant and personal to students by forging a deep and lasting connection between students and nature,” said Kris Scopinich, Vice President of Education at Mass Audubon. “These innovative and collaborative programs are crucial to fostering the next generation of environmental leaders, and we’re grateful to these teachers and all educators across the Commonwealth who work so hard to integrate these topics into their teaching.”