Mike Zamm (he/him) earned a Bachelors Degree from City College with a major in psychology and a minor in sociology and social work and was later granted a Masters Degree in Public Administration with a major in urban and regional planning from New York University.
In 1975, he began what became a 41-year tenure as Director of Environmental Education at the Council on the Environment of NYC, now GrowNYC. In that role, he created a number of urban environmental education programs including, "Walking: A Realistic Approach to Environmental Education," "Energy Conservation Education: An Action Approach," and the "Training Student Organizers (TSO) Program," which grew into the primary environmental education effort at the organization for four decades.
Mike is the principal author of the concept paper which convinced the then NYC Board of Education to create the High School for Environmental Studies in 1992. He played a significant role in the development of the school's curriculum.
He has been a member of EEAC since 1976 and has been on the steering committee for 43 years. In that role, he led the campaign to work with the State Education Department to infuse environmental concepts into the New York State Syllabus and Curriculum in most subject areas.
In 1998, Mike was given a lifetime achievement award by the Christadora Community in recognition of his "outstanding service and dedication to the children and environment of New York City."
Since 1999, he has coordinated EEAC's Teacher Environmental Education Preparation (TEEP), a project to motivate colleges of education to incorporate environmental education into their teacher preparation programs. TEEP has evolved into the Environmental Education Projects Forum, a forum for the discussion and generation of projects to grow environmental education in NYC and the surrounding region.