William E. "Bill" Eswine
Science Educator and Naturalist
Member since: 2025
Proposed by: Trustees' Garden Club, Zone VIII
Seconded by: Sand Hills Garden Club, Zone VIII
For more than 50 years, Bill Eswine has engaged children (and their children and grandchildren) throughout coastal Georgia and Florida as proactive stewards of the planet. An award-winning science educator and naturalist, he was a recipient of the GCA's Elizabeth Abernathy Hull Award in 2000 for inspiring children to care for the natural world by involving them in innovative hands-on, age-appropriate programs to acquaint them with the principles of environmental protection.
Eswine joined the faculty of Savannah Country Day School (SCDS) in 1972 as a lower school science teacher. During his years at the school, he has developed a model curriculum for environmental education and his outdoor classrooms have grown to include a garden, apiary, turtle and fish pond, greenhouse, and chicken coop. In a 2022 interview with Images, the SCDS bi-annual publication, Eswine commented that "the value of a great education is not always obvious until years later when you see former students who understand that being wise requires discipline, caring for others requires compassion, and that we all desire to connect to something beyond ourselves." He noted "that when we connect children to places and creatures at a young age, they never forget and they care about preserving the coastal areas for the rest of their lives."
In the early 1980s he took his program to the barrier islands. He launched Coastal Ecology Camp and Canaveral Seashore Camp--one-week summer sessions for elementary public and private school students--and he initiated a week-long program for inner-city youth.
