English teacher Liz Cutler wins watershed award.
By: David Campbell
Liz Cutler is an English teacher at Princeton Day School who has a green thumb for growing environmentalists.
"We’ve been growing activists for years and years," said Ms. Cutler of PDS’s Environmental Action or EnAct Club, which she founded more than a decade ago.
"The ripple effect of having 10 to 15 kids go out every year into the world who will form pockets of activism and world-changing maybe that’s worth its weight in gold," she continued. "Each of those kids will go out and make a difference."
Ms. Cutler, who has taught at PDS’s Upper School for 18 years, along with James C. Amon, executive director of the Delaware & Raritan Canal Commission, were recently honored for their environmental achievements at the annual trustees meeting of the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association.
Ms. Cutler, accompanied by some of her students, was presented with Stony Brook’s River-Friendly Citizen Award for what the watershed association called her "profound commitment to the environment, education and our children" in a statement announcing the award. According to watershed association Executive Director George Hawkins, Ms. Cutler was nominated for the award with enthusiastic support from staff.
"She’s incredibly committed to building an environmental ethic in her students by encouraging them to do more than initially they know they can," Mr. Hawkins said. "Then she steps back and lets them blossom, and her students have an extraordinary experience. She teaches them how they can make a difference themselves."
Carlton H. Tucker, principal of the Upper School, called Ms. Cutler the "conscience for environmentalism" at PDS.
"Her yearly projects with the students have been remarkable teaching and educational forums for all PDS students," Mr. Tucker said.
The environmental projects she and her students have spearheaded are no mere after-school gigs to fill space on a college application. They represent real work in regional conservation.
An example: She and the EnAct Club helped convince the PDS board of trustees to partner with Delaware & Raritan Greenway and Princeton Township to conserve 165 acres of the Coventry Farm, which was slated for development.
Students with the EnAct Club wrote letters, talked with the PDS trustees and helped raise money to buy the farmhouse parcel, which is visible from the school’s classrooms.
The school’s purchase of about 11 acres of the Coventry Farm property provided the $2.5 million needed to close the $9.5 million conservation deal.
Her students worked to clear and mark the wooded trail on the edge of the PDS campus, access to which the school officially granted to Princeton Township, permitting the public to cross school lands to Coventry Farm and the Woodfield Reservation, and linking up with Princeton’s greater trail system.
In March, the EnAct Club sponsored a Student Environmental Summit featuring speakers that included a "green" architect, a solar-energy engineer and the administrator of the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Acres program.
Last year, the club raised more than $43,000 with its countywide "Walk for Open Space." About 250 walkers gathered from all over Mercer County at Mercer County Park.
The money was divided among the PDS Coventry Farm Fund, the watershed association, D&R Greenway, Friends of Princeton Open Space and Friends of Hopewell Valley Open Space.
Over the years, EnAct has run a recycled-paper products co-op for the school; planted hundreds of trees in a reforestation effort with Princeton Township; and twice convinced the PDS administration to give students a day off from classes to let the club hold an environmental education day.
The environmental day featured workshops and around 25 speakers, including a former DEP commissioner.
Speaking on the watershed award, Ms. Cutler said, "What I’m most thrilled about is that the environmental community sees that the work that is done by students matters.
"The award is really a testament to the growing of people who will take responsibility for protecting the world in which we live," Ms. Cutler said.

