LaFrance Recognized as Heroine

IPSWICH — Lori LaFrance is no stranger to being recognized by prestigious national organizations for her work on environmental issues with students at Ipswich High School.
LaFrance, who has been teaching science for 17 years to mostly juniors and seniors, was one of five in the country to receive the Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
In 2015, she was named the Massachusetts Conservation Teacher of the Year by the state Audubon Society and the Exemplary Science Teacher by the North Shore Science Supervisors.
This summer, LaFrance, who credits her recognition to her students, called Sustainability Scholars, was named one of 127 Commonwealth Heroines by the state Commission on the Status of Women (MCSW).
“I am beyond thrilled,” LaFrance said last week. “I love my job.”
Each year the Commission partners with state legislators to identify women who make outstanding contributions to their organizations and in their communities. Each legislator is encouraged to submit one woman from their constituency as a means of recognizing their invaluable efforts and extraordinary acts of service, the commission wrote in its announcement.
“The Commonwealth Heroines are women who don’t make the news, but make all the difference in their communities,” said MCSW Chairwoman Dr. Sarah Glenn-Smith. “Thousands of women in every community across the Commonwealth perform unheralded acts on a daily basis that make our homes, neighborhoods, cities, and towns better places to live. Commonwealth Heroines use their time, talent, spirit, and enthusiasm to enrich the lives of others in their community. They are mentors, volunteers, and innovators – they are the glue that keeps a community together.”
Nominated by state Rep. Kristin Kassner, she was disappointed that she had to miss the ceremony in June, because her father was having emergency brain surgery in Florida. But she looks forward to getting to know other Heroines, including Lili Mitchell in Ipswich and Diane Legg in Amesbury.
LaFrance believes she is recognized because her teaching style takes the students from the classroom to study the environment first-hand on beaches and in marshes.
“I never say no to any opportunity,” LaFrance said.
She described herself as a go-between with environmental experts in the community and her students.
Although she lets her students select their projects each year, she said she has focused much of the research data the class gathers on the issues of invasive species and sea level rise.
The students, most of whom drive, use the 70-minute class time to drive to beaches, including Pavilion and Plum Island, to study local eco-systems.
But her career has taken her far from the North Shore beaches. Using funds from the William Paine Enhancement program, she took 12 students to Costa Rica to study environmental issues. Unlike other school field trips, which parents pay for, the students were selected for the free trip by outside judges from proposals they wrote.
The highlight of the trip was attending a conference with 500 other young scholars who met Jane Goodall, famous for her work preserving gorillas in Africa.
The EPA Presidential Award included $5,000 — $2,500 for a sustainability project at the high school and $2,500 for LaFrance’s professional development.
The Sustainability Scholars, after much debate, voted to spend the school’s $2,500 to buy an electric vehicle charging station at the high school.
LaFrance used the $2,500 for her professional development to fly to the Galápagos Islands, where she met other environmentalists, some of whom have become resources for her students in their projects.
The EPA in its recognition of her work said, LaFrance has “empowered her students to take actions preserving (the) community’s valuable natural resources, both on land and in the ocean, while developing strong leadership skills and a passion for the environment.
One of her classes’ most celebrated accomplishments is persuading the Ipswich Town Meeting to ban single-use plastic bags and Styrofoam containers. She said that project not only helped the local environment, but taught her students how the political world works and how to communicate with adults.
Because of the plastic bag and Styrofoam ban, her students, who were runners up for the President’s Environmental Youth award, were awarded the first Ocean Spirit Award from Women Working for Oceans at the New England Aquarium.
She said a current passion for her students is researching microplastic pollution. The students searched several North Shore beaches, but found little microplastics.
“I knew we were doing it wrong,” she said.
Then she met Hanna Mogensen, a prolific North Shore researcher at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge and other organizations. Mogensen showed LaFrance and her students how to gather data on microplastic pollution.
LaFrance’s Sustainability Scholars class was a major reason Ipswich High won the highly competitive Green Ribbon Award in 2019 from the U.S. Department of Education.
So, what will her Sustainability Scholars do this year? She said she is excited for the new school year to begin so she can find out what they want to do.