TOPANGA : Conservation Group Honors Teacher

A Topanga Elementary School teacher was honored Wednesday as California’s best environmental education instructor by a state conservation organization.

Leslie Dahlquist was named Environmental Education Teacher of the Year by the California Assn. of Resource Conservation Districts at its annual conference in Ventura.

Dahlquist won the award for her extensive environmental curriculum at Topanga, where she teaches kindergarten and first grade.

In her class, students wrote two books dealing with the rain forest and environmental awareness.

The books were displayed at the conference this week.

Dahlquist also encouraged parents to recycle and conducted seminars to show other teachers how to weave environmental concepts into their curricula.

“Just the breadth of the activity was very impressive in terms of subject matter, in terms of involvement--not just in the school but with the parents--and in terms of reaching out to other teachers in the district,” said Glenn Bailey, co-chairman of the committee that selected the winner.

Dahlquist was nominated by the Topanga-Las Virgenes Resource Conservation District, one of about 120 such districts throughout the state.