Annette is a Ph.D. candidate in the Land Resources Program of the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. Growing up in southern Minnesota Annette explored the varied landscapes of Minnesota, falling in love with all of them. Fishing the trout streams of the southeast, hunting the prairies of the western border and paddling the lakes and streams of the northern Boundary Waters Wilderness Canoe Area with friends gave her an appreciation for the diversity and uniqueness of Minnesota's natural resources. After earning a Bachelor's degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences from South Dakota State University in Brookings, South Dakota she moved with her husband to northern Minnesota where she went on to earn a Master's degree in Environmental Studies from Bemidji State University. Annette has over 12 years of experience in environmental and natural resources education, working with state agencies, universities and local, national and tribal programs on the topics of watershed protection, aquatic education and natural resource conservation. Her work has taken her into the field and into the classroom, exploring the interactions between natural and social systems. In the Twin Cities metro area Annette worked with schools, local governments and citizen groups to educate youth about Minnesota's lakes and associated aquatic life and implemented a watershed protection program for six of the remaining trout streams in the rapidly urbanizing area. The watershed protection program has now expanded into both a volunteer stream monitoring program and a natural resources community assistance model. For the past five years Annette has worked through the Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance, continuing to help communities understand their environment and expanding her efforts to education reform. Working with the State Education and Environment Roundtable (SEER), a cooperative work group involving 16 state education departments, Annette served both as Minnesota's state coordinator and as a national facilitator for implementing the EIC Model. The model utilizes local natural and community surroundings as the learning context, combined with best practices in education, to increase student achievement. During this time Annette also worked on the first statewide framework for environmental education based upon a systems approach, The Environmental Literacy Scope and Sequence, a tool for building understanding about our natural world and the interactions taking place between social and natural systems. Annette is presently a doctoral candidate under Dr. Janet Silbernagel, working on the Wild Rice Project. Annette lives in wild rice country and is interested in using a landscape approach to understand harvest and management of wild rice across state, tribal and treaty ceded lands in Minnesota and Wisconsin. She hopes her research will inform the science of wild rice management and conservation across the Upper Great Lakes Region, thus sustaining a ricing culture for generations to come. Annette Drewes, Graduate Research Assistant back to Studio home page Top of page || LA Home || Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies |
