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The association recognizes exceptional teachers in the Earth science field and works to raise the quality of and emphasis on teaching the geosciences at all levels. The award is given to all states in the U.S. and provinces in Canada. States are grouped into sections, and Wing won the New York State Eastern Section Award for 2013.
Wing was judged on a number of categories, based on his teaching ability, initiative, strengths, community involvement and other accomplishments such as his student relationships and involvement with the iPad program for the past couple of years.
"One of the highlights of why I won this was our curriculum, specifically the one-to-one iPad program," he said. "My colleagues and I have developed wonderful lessons that have kids using iPads in class -- there's a tremendous amount of inventiveness, curiosity, creativeness, not only on our part but with the kids. I feel like it's cutting-edge teaching. We use them almost every day in class. I think that was a big part of it."
Wing has also developed a YouTube library of earth science curriculum that took him nearly 1,000 hours to make and compile. The videos have received more than 330,000 hits from students, he said.
Opportunity Plus is the after-school program that he coordinates, which is geared toward underprivileged students.
"They are at-risk students on the verge of failing," Wing said. "But we have teachers on board teaching them and providing any help they might need. It's also just a safe place for them to get their work done."
Mamaroneck has been running the program for 11 years, and it's one of main the factors that got Wing the award.
"I'm very humbled; I'm very honored to be the recipient this year," Wing said. "A couple of old New York State recipients have even contacted me over the past few weeks, and it just seems like a nice fraternity to be a part of."
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