Alumna Dr. Katrina Macht Awarded Lifetime Achievement Award by the Jane Goodall Foundation

Dr. Katrina Macht, a graduate of the doctoral program in Pedagogy and Philosophy and an NJ middle school teacher, established the first school-based Roots and Shoots program of the Jane Goodall organization. When Katrina found P4C she realized that philosophical inquiry was the missing piece in the Roots and Shoots approach to engaging young people in environmental activism, which focused on empathy and action. She used Lipman’s novel Kio and Gus, which has a theme of philosophy of nature. Her students decided to renovate the land around their school, creating a nature reserve with all native species. They educated their community and the entire community became involved.

It was a huge project spanning a few years. Katrina wove the project into her science, social science, and language arts curriculum — a fine example of inquiry-based pedagogy, and Jane Goodall herself visited the school. Katrina’s dissertation was a study of the impact of the program on her students by the time they were young adults. She recently retired, but just last November, she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Jane Goodall Foundation, in a global ceremony that was broadcast on YouTube.