Abby Taylor, an environmental science teacher at Parkersburg High School, receives the first Green Leadership Award from Eric Engle, president of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action. (Photo Provided)

PARKERSBURG — A teacher at Parkersburg High School is the first recipient of the Green Leadership Award from Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.

The inaugural Green Leadership Award went to Abby Taylor, an environmental science teacher at PHS. The award recognizes residents in the Mid-Ohio Valley who have gone over and above to bring new thinking and practices to the region to aid the transition to a sustainable world.

Sustainability means the ability of people to coexist with nature on Earth over a long time, meeting needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, according to a release from Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.

Taylor received the award for collaborating with Climate Action to create the youth Climate Ambassador Program.

In its second year, Climate Ambassadors educate their peers about the environment and the danger and urgency of climate change and create projects that address those issues here in the Mid-Ohio Valley. Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action provides funding for the project ideas.

Taylor was raised in Williamstown and graduated from West Virginia University with a degree in religious studies and a minor in music. She returned to school to get a teaching certification so she could spend more time with her son.

“I learned a lot of things I would never teach anyone else, but those are the lessons you never forget, the ones that build your character and teach you empathy,” she said. “I rely on this grit and good will every day, especially now that I am working with teenagers.”

Taylor learned about climate change when she returned to school for certification to teach Earth and space science. She said she was shocked by the science, the neglected reports beginning in the 1970s and the growing concern of an increasingly vocal majority of scientists in the decades following.

This knowledge changed her perspective when she became a teacher.

“Kids today aren’t growing up with ‘the sky is the limit’ as their background; they are facing uncertainties that we cannot understand,” Taylor said. “My goal has been to prepare them for these potential challenges and to offer them the chance to be a part of the solution.”

West Virginia is among the oldest and most diverse ecosystems on the planet, which Taylor makes sure her students appreciate.

“These kids need to realize the value of their own ecological heritage and, perhaps more importantly, they need to celebrate their contribution to this great state,” Taylor said. “This is the wild and wonderful state where they can find purpose and belonging. This is West Virginia, in the heart of Appalachia, the oldest mountain range on the planet. If you were to ask around, most of them are completely unaware of this. They would tell you something else; they would say that West Virginia is ‘coal country’ and shrug. They have no idea how ancient the rocks are in our mountains, or how valuable our ecological diversity is becoming as a resource because of climate change.”