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Amy Higgs
Class of 1998
Majors: International Studies, Environmental Policy
Minors: Science, Technology and Society
Following graduation, Amy spent a year as a Thomas
Watson Fellow, working and travelling throughout Latin America.
She spent the year studying, developing, and participating in creative
environmental education programs in Belize, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Chile,
Peru, and Bolivia. She taught daily classes, developed curricula,
created environmental clubs, led teacher's workshops, taught a college
field course, and initiated and coordinated new environmental education
programs. Amy worked with schools, NGO's, and international conservation
groups and taught people of all ages and backgrounds - from an indigenous
community with virtually no previous exposure to Western culture to a group
of US college students on a study abroad program in Belize.
After returning from her fellowship, Amy started
working with Conservation International (CI), as an associate for the International
Communications Department. She designed and implemented international
conservation awareness strategies in the "hotspots," 25 of the world's
most biologically diverse and threatened areas. During this year,
the program received many requests to support field partners in Environmental
Education efforts, specifically targeting children in the hotspots.
Amy saw this as an excellent opportunity to design and establish a global
Environmental Education (EE) program at CI. The mission of this new program
is to educate youth in priority conservation countries about human
connections to their environment in order to promote responsible behavior
and commitment to biodiversity conservation. As Coordinator of CI's
new EE program, Amy plans, manages, and executes different stages of EE
programs in 25 countries. Specifically, this involves organizing and facilitating
field-based EE strategy-design workshops, creating and supporting a Global
Network of EE field staff, conducting training programs for educators,
producing urgently needed educational materials, and monitoring the impacts
of our activities.
Although Amy is dedicated to her work at CI, she
has decided to return to graduate school. Amy applied to the University
of Michigan, Duke, Harvard, and the University of Montana. She decided
that the Master's program in EE at the University of Michigan's School
of Natural Resources and the Environment best meets her needs, and will
be starting in September of 2001. Amy hopes to continue her work
with CI on a part-time basis during grad school. Feel free to contact
her regarding grad school decisions, Watson Fellowships, or working in
the field of International Environmental Protection or EE. Much of
the knowledge and contacts Amy gained through Colby's International Studies
Program has proven invaluable.
April, 2001
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