Note: This commendation accompanied the Kansas Wildlife Federation’s Conservationist of the Year award to Dr. George Potts in 1993.
Dr. George Potts’ strong, positive and long-lasting contribution to environmental education and conservation of our natural resources has spanned many years and involved many people. Since this native Kansan received his B.S. degree in Biology in 1961, he has dedicated over 30 years of his life to conservation education and communication in high schools and colleges throughout the Wichita area and elsewhere.
George’s teaching efforts began at Fremont High School in Los Angeles, California from 1964 to 1967, but he came home to Kansas to begin a career in Wichita schools in 1967. During the late 1960’s, George coordinated the Environmental Education Program for all the Wichita schools. While at Wichita North, he started the first Ecology Explorer Post (Boy Scouts) in the country. The post won national awards for several of their environmental/conservation projects.
Dr. Potts spent from 1976 to 1991 at Friends University as a professor in the Biology Department. While there, he developed the interdisciplinary Environmental Studies major for undergraduate students, an undergraduate major in Zoo Science (the only one in the country at the time), and the Master of Science in Environmental Studies program. In 1991, George left full time employment at the university to do consulting and contract work in environmental education.
Potts recent contract work has been to assist the Wichita Area Girl Scout Council in the development of nature trails at their camps, and to develop activities to be used on those trails; to write grants for the Kansas Wildscape Foundation, and to help develop and coordinate the Outdoor Wildlife Learning Sites (OWLS) program for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.
Dr. Potts is a certified facilitator in the following environmental and conservation education programs: Investigating Your Environment; Project Learning Tree; Project Wild; and Project Wild Aquatic. He has taught hundreds of teachers in workshops and classes offered through Wichita State University, Kansas State University, and Friends University. He developed the Ecocap environmental education format which has been used by educators throughout the country.
George’s past awards are many, too numerous to list here. He has authored and co-authored numerous publications, books, and educational materials. The most recent is Watching Kansas Wildlife: A Guide to 101 Sites, which was published in 1993.
Throughout the years, Dr. George Potts teaching and leadership in environmental/conservation education has touched the lives of thousands of people both young and old. He is as busy today as he was 25 years ago and his efforts certainly will continue into the future. It is for both past and present accomplishments that he is awarded the Conservationist of the Year Award for 1993.