CHEYENNE BOTTOMS — Kansas Wetlands Education Center educator Eric Giesing has received the Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education Rising Star Award.

"It’s pretty exciting," said Giesing. He started at the KWEC in 2010 and began creating education programs for grades 7-12.

In his first two years, Giesing has established an environmental education curriculum at the KWEC. He has created and promoted a list of 18 programs available to schools, and he has worked with most of the schools in the region. The programs he offers are tied to the Kansas Science standards. He can provide programs to schools on just about any topic teachers throw his way.

Giesing has also helped host events at the KWEC on migratory birds, black-footed ferrets and wild turkey hunting. He is a Certified Merit Badge Boy Scout instructor and offers that instruction to Boy Scouts, and conducts water quality samples with graduate students at the Bottoms. He also works with the Flying Wild, EARTH and Waterlink, all conservation and cirriculum programs, as well as offering birding tours of the Bottoms.

Giesing has also begun writing an article with Dr. Dan Witt every other week in the Great Bend Tribune, called Marsh Musings. Dr. Witt is a wildlife photographer who spends a great deal of time at Cheyenne Bottoms.

The two have received emails from people in Vermont to San Diego who have read the article. They also speak around the state on the topics covered in their stories.

Giesing was nominated for the award by his supervisor, Curtis Wolf, manger of KWEC. "He has done a lot of work with the organization. It is good to give him recognition for his accomplishments.

"Both of our educators are the ones who have made our Center a success," Wolf said. "We are an education center, and the programs we offer are at the heart of the Center."

KACEE is a statewide non-profit association of public and private agencies and individuals that promote science based conservation and environmental education.