After receiving an education professional development grant from Volkswagen, semi-retired educator and wolf enthusiast Jim Watson, of Chattanooga, has made it his mission to share his passion with others.
Watson is working to get wolf education into classrooms across Hamilton County via the group Educators for Environmental Awareness.
“Wolves have often gotten a bad rap with how they’re represented in popular children’s stories and films,” Watson said by phone. “My main focus is to get into classrooms and help kids see that they are [an] actual benefit to the environment, and they play a key role in the world around them.”
With the grant funding, an additional $1,000 anonymous donation and money Watson raised himself via a part-time recycling business, he was able to reach out to fellow educators in Hamilton County and encourage them to apply for the professional development run by himself and Educators for Environmental Awareness.
That program included trips to Chehaw Park in Albany, Georgia, and the Tallahassee Museum in Tallahassee, Florida (both for red wolf programs); St. Vincent Island National Wildlife Refuge in Indian Pass, Florida, for a meeting about a growing pack of red wolves; and the Seacrest Wolf Preserve in Chipley, Florida, for an up-close-and-personal interaction with gray wolves.