Sixteen years ago, New Jersey educator Katrina Macht drove several of her students up to Danbury, Connecticut, for an experience that would change all of their lives.

A life-long fan of Dr. Jane, Katrina was making the two-hour trip in order to attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Jane Goodall Center for Excellence in Environmental Studies at Western Connecticut State University. At the event, she was able to meet Dr. Jane, and her students asked for Dr. Jane’s mailing address.

When they returned to New Jersey, her students wrote letters to Dr. Jane, and, to their surprise, Dr. Jane wrote back—and told them all about the Roots & Shoots program. Not long after that, Katrina got involved with Roots & Shoots, and she’s been at it ever since.

The current Roots & Shoots group leader of H.E.L.P. (Hillside's Environmental Leaders and Protectors), Katrina get started by integrating Roots & Shoots into her classroom at Hillside Intermediate School in Bridgewater, New Jersey. She began with small manageable projects that had clear end results and then built on those results.

"It's great to dream big, but your kids need to feel accomplished," she said. "Good ideas need landing gear as well as wings."

Katrina knows what she's talking about. She has now extended Roots & Shoots programming to all of her school's roughly 700 fifth- and sixth-graders and, following the lead of the Jane Goodall Environmental Middle School (JGEMS) in Salem, Oregon, has established Hillside as an official Roots & Shoots school.

When recruiting Roots & Shoots members, Katrina often targets young students who are disengaged from their education. She has developed a service-learning program that teaches the established curriculum, but filtered through student interests.

"Necessity drove me to figure out what interested them," Katrina said.

She has found that, through Roots & Shoots, students can re-engage by focusing on a project that really excites them, such as protecting dolphins from fishing nets, designing a cook book with a mission or maintaining the school garden that her group established.

Katrina remembers one fifth-grader who was quiet and isolated, rarely interacting with others or doing his school work. She asked him to join Roots & Shoots by getting involved in the group's "Students Raising Students" program, through which members help students in East Africa make it to college.

Before long, the student had begun staying after school to participate in Roots & Shoots, taken on new leadership roles in the group and improved his academic performance.

"He became alive in a way no one thought possible," Katrina said. "[Roots & Shoots provided] a place where he could be successful."

Most recently, Katrina has incorporated Roots & Shoots into her own continuing education. She’s writing her doctoral dissertation on engaging problem students through Roots & Shoots projects.

So, what advice does this seasoned educator have for other Roots & Shoots group leaders? Honor youth voice.

"What kids can come up with I never dreamed."

Inspired by Katrina? Become a Roots & Shoots group leader yourself!