Last weekend, Dave Szczygiel was honored during the Michigan Alliance for Environmental and Outdoor Education (MAEOE) annual conference, when he was awarded the William Stapp Environmental Education Award, MAEOE’s highest honor in the field of Environmental Education (EE).
Szczygiel retired from AAPS in 2024 after serving the district for 38 years. For 28 of those years he worked in the district’s Environmental Education Program. He introduced more than 30,000 individual students to environmental education on field trips. These trips covered a broad range of environmental education topics, including habitat studies, pond dippings, plant communities, life cycles, geology, winter fire building, water and wastewater treatment, hydrology, energy, solid waste management and forestry.
AAPS Environmental Education Lead Teacher Coert Ambrosino described in his nomination letter how Szczygiel built an incredible network of naturalist volunteers, land owners, community partners, and program supporters that have helped sustain and strengthen the AAPS Environmental Education Program. “Dave has a special way of capturing the attention of students and nurturing a sense of wonder and care for the natural world,” Ambrosino said. “Students routinely say (or write in thank you cards) that their EE experience with Mr. Szczygiel was the best field trip they’d ever been on, and in some cases the best day of their lives! His frequently used phrase, ‘Scientists don’t say eww, they say how interesting!’, is now a common refrain amongst science teachers throughout AAPS.”
The award is named for Dr. Bill Stapp, who is often credited as a “founder of environmental education” and who helped launch the AAPS EE Program in 1959. The statewide professional organization honoring Szcygiel’s lifetime of service and significant contributions to environmental education in Ann Arbor is a proud moment for AAPS, and the fact that the award is named for Dr. Stapp makes it even more special.
Learn more about Szczygiel’s work in AAPS in this story about his retirement and this profile from 2016.
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