NJ Teacher Wins Animal Action Week Contest

February 25, 2009

We were excited to receive the news that the grand prize winner of the International Fund for Animal Welfare‘s contest “Beneath the Waves: Protecting Marine Wildlife” is a New Jersey teacher.

The judges agreed that Kathy Pina, a 4th grade teacher from the Jackson Avenue School in Hackensack, did a a fantastic job integrating IFAW’s “Beneath the Waves” curriculum into her own classroom while also encouraging her entire school to become more environmentally conscious. As the winner, she gets to take an Earthwatch Expedition to Matura Beach, Trinidad to study and help preserve the leatherback, green, and hawksbill turtles that journey there from all over the Atlantic Ocean to nest.

The “Beneath the Waves” contest is a part of IFAW’s “Animal Action Week” to raise aware for improving animal welfare and conservation around the globe. The International Fund for Animal Welfare, a Dodge grantee, started four decades ago as a group of concerned citizens fighting the commercial hunting of white coat harp seals in eastern Canada. Since then, IFAW has grown to a worldwide animal welfare organization with more than a million contributors and offices around the world.

Photo courtesy Marcio Scatrut