Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

From the Boulder Daily Camera, January 29, 2006

January 29, 2006

Each year, the Daily Camera recognizes leaders in our midst, outstanding community members who set the pace in Boulder and Broomfield counties. Each year, people who have given so much to the world around them amaze us with the major contributions they've made to the arts, education, business, quality of life and more.

This year is no exception.

Growing up, Carol McLaren Schott found excitement in discovering the outside world.

Nature was her laboratory.

"I had a real curiosity about how things worked," she says.

The love of learning led her into a field of study where she continued to learn, but also helped fuel the wide-eyed curiosity of others by working with a program that brought science to thousands of children.

"We wanted to teach (science) in a way that was exciting and meaningful to the students," she says.

Twenty-two years ago, she founded the University of Colorado's Science Discovery program, which started out as 10 after-school classes that served less than 200 students. Now, the program has grown in its offerings and its reach, with more than 800 classes and presentations that reach close to 30,000 students - some of whom are low-income.

Schott, 59, smiles and tells how some former students are now at schools like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale, and how others came back to work with the program when they're older.

But she is quick to not take all of the credit.

"I have not done this by myself," she says, noting help from the program's staff and the university.

But without Schott, the program might have succumbed to the tough times, says Ellen Brock, Science Discovery's associate director who has worked with Schott for 20 years. Schott was responsible for many successful fundraising efforts, Brock says.

"I think she's definitely made a difference in (Boulder County) not just with the program, but with who she is," Brock says.

During her time at CU, Schott also spent nine years with the National Center for Atmospheric Research as the principal investigator of Project LEARN, which training teachers from rural areas around the state. Before CU, Schott was a teacher and principal at the September School, taught and co-founded the Boulder Valley Institute, and volunteered for the Peace Corps in Turkey.

This year, as Schott retires from one journey, she hopes to start another.

That could include helping her husband at Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy, working on sustainable farming, spending time with her children and grandchildren, or even volunteering for the Peace Corps again.

"It's been 22 years of a lot of work and a lot of fun," Schott says. "I think it's time to take a little bit of time to see what I want to do next."

- Alicia Wallace, Camera Staff Writer