LISBON — Olivia Griset, science teacher at Lisbon High School, was recently honored as a 2009 National Outstanding Educator of the Year by Project Learning Tree®, the environmental education program of the American Forest Foundation. Griset was one of five educators who received the award for using environmental education to spur students’ enthusiasm to learn. 
“These outstanding educators show the many ways that environmental education can be used with children and adults,” said Kathy McGlauflin, director of Project Learning Tree and senior vice president of education at the American Forest Foundation. “At all grade levels, inside and outside the classroom, environmental education opens up new ways to learn.”
Griset teaches biology, oceanography and other courses to students grades 10 through 12. She also developed a field ecology class in which students learn and conduct research outdoors.
Griset began her environmental education career at the Utah State College of Natural Resources Environmental Education Laboratory. Moving to Maine in 2003, she returned to school to become a public school teacher. She has worked with local community members, Maine Project Learning Tree and the Maine Forest Service to create a secondary-level unit on forestry based on an activity found in PLT’s Forest Ecology module and has been instrumental in introducing fellow teachers to the PLT curriculum.