Zander Srodes began his first sea turtle conservation lecture program at the age of eleven years old. During the past six years, he has devoted all of his free time teaching more than five thousand young people about sea turtle conservation.
His fascination with sea turtles began on Little Gasparilla, an ecologically vibrant seaside community where his family took their weekend outings. Here, under the guidance of Linda Soderquist, a local teacher, artist, and resident, Zander learned about sea turtles and their place in the shoreline ecology. The lessons lit a spark. Soon, the young student created an educational program on sea turtles for a grade school audience, and the Gulf Coast Community Foundation backed it with a start-up grant. Over the next six years, another environmental group, The Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program, provided long-term support, covering everything from Zander’s educational program to keeping his published books in print. All the while, he continued to study turtles on his own time at Mote Marine Laboratory, where he collected photographs and data for a new educational presentation – “Turtle Talks.” Within a year, Zander would begin staging Turtle Talks at parks, libraries, and elementary schools in Charlotte, Sarasota, and Manatee, as well as in places as far away as Costa Rica, Panama, and Trinidad.
To reach a larger audience about the importance of sea turtles and ocean ecology, Zander wrote a twenty-page children’s activity book, also called Turtle Talks, and convinced his school’s advanced Spanish class to translate it for a Spanish-speaking readership. The initial print run of Turtle Talks reached twenty thousand copies in English and ten thousand in Spanish. Zander has had these books distributed to schools, student clubs, and conservation organizations free of charge, often drawing upon fellow students to help with everything from editing to translating copy. Currently, students in eight countries have read the book, and a high school student in France has just translated an edition for publication in French. In the fall of 2007, Zander published a new book, The Gopher Tortoise Book, out of concern for the gopher tortoise, a species recently classified as threatened with extinction.
Next year, Zander Srodes will begin college where he plans to concentrate on environmental studies. Zander still believes that grassroots education and conservation efforts can galvanize communities to stop overdevelopment and poaching. But he is also conscious of the role government must play in protecting the environment. “My thought on the future of the environmental movement is that it will take more environmentally sensitive politicians in order to make a difference,” he says. “This is the role that I intend to play in the future.”
Read More Hero Stories >
