PCSWCD honors Rochelle Titcomb

Teacher is Outstanding Conservation Educator of the Year

By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer

GUILFORD — For her work incorporating nature and resource protection into the classroom, Piscataquis Community Elementary School (PCES) sixth-grade teacher Rochelle Titcomb has been named the Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District’s (PCSWCD) 2016 Outstanding Conservation Educator of the Year. Titcomb, who has taught at the Guilford-based district for 30 of her 33 years in education, was presented with the honor during an assembly in the gym on the morning of Sept. 16.

Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom

CONSERVATION EDUCATOR OF THE YEAR — PCES grade 6 teacher Rochelle Titcomb, center, was presented with the PCSWCD’s 2016 Outstanding Conservation Educator of the Year Award during an assembly at the Guilford school on Sept. 16. From left is PCSWCD Educational Coordinator Kacey Weber, Toby Hall and Gordon Moore of the PCSWCD Board of Directors, Titcomb, State Rep. Paul Stearns (R-Guilford), State Sen. Paul Davis (R-Sangerville) and PCSWCD directors Janet Sawyer and Sam Brown.

“Each year our district recognizes one teacher in Piscataquis County as our Outstanding Conservation Educator of the Year,” PCSWCD Educational Coordinator Kacey Weber told the gathered PCES community. “Mrs. Rochelle Titcomb, your sixth-grade teacher at Piscataquis Community Elementary School has been selected as your Outstanding Conservation Educator of the Year.”

“Mrs. Titcomb is extremely committed to teaching students about our natural resources,” Weber said. She said Titcomb was born and raised in the Guilford area and from a young age developed a love and appreciation for the outdoors. Over her career Titcomb has made an effort to connect her students to local ecology by integrating natural resource conservation education into her curriculum to teach them to have a healthy respect for the environment.

Weber then asked how many of the students present are in grade 6. “Each year sixth-grade classes come out to our Demonstration Forest,” she said, as the pupils travel to Williamsburg for a day of hands-on learning on soils, forestry, native trees and wildlife.

“Last year Mrs. Titcomb and other sixth-grade teachers worked to introduce water-based lessons,” Weber said. She explained the grade 6 teachers and PCSWCD brought a watershed program to the school prior to a field trip to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland.

“This one is very meaningful because I know Mrs. Titcomb is one of a team of of teachers who have received this award,” said State Rep. Paul Stearns (R-Guilford), a retired SAD 4 superintendent. “Mrs. Titcomb knows how important it is to know our woods and the land we live on.”

Stearns and State Sen. Paul Davis (R-Sangerville) then presented Titcomb with a Legislative Sentiment recognizing her as the PCSWCD 2016 Outstanding Conservation Educator of the Year.