Each year, MEC and the Detroit Free Press hold a photo/essay contest and award the Barbara Stanton Environmental Award of Excellence to raise awareness of environmental problems and possible solutions. The award is named for Barbara Stanton, a retired Free Press editorial writer and champion of the environment.

Photographers are asked to consider inventive ways to help make the world a better, cleaner place and submit their photo and short essay to MEC.

Entries come from three age groups, 8-13, 14-18 and 19+, and each group wins a first prize of $500, a second prize of $250 and a third prize of $100. Following are the first and second prize winners from 2004.
Congratulations to all winners!

First place, age 19+, 2004
Billie Hickey
Detroit, MI

How could I make the world a better place? By choosing the most unlikely spot-four forgotten, vacant lots along the old oxbow of the lower River Rouge right after it leaves the Ford Rouge Plant-and making a mini nature park there. At first the area was so overgrown that people living across the street could not see the river. Erosion had created a huge depression around a burned out shell of a boat, and debris littered the shore and lots. Then came hopeful, energetic people: from youth who painted a river mural over a graffiti-covered concrete wall, to grandmothers toting grandkids so they could learn about helping out in the neighborhood, to strong college students who helped excavate shopping carts from the muck, to the old neighbor that keeps the weeds mowed.

Now there are bird boxes, native plantings and steps to the water. From a new bench we watch black crowned night herons, kingfishers, wood ducks and rows of snapping turtles. Neighborhood kids catch catfish. An elderly neighbor no longer feels she needs to move. And even with the sounds of the city-one begins to experience the peace that only nature can bring.

Second place, age 19+, 2004
Jack McGowan-Stinski
Morley, MI

At first glance, the flames in this photo may seem more like a problem than a solution-considering the footage we see on the news of devastating wildfires out west. But this fire is not a foe and is instead an important ecological tool for conservation: prescribed burning. Fire was important in the development and maintenance of grasslands, forests and wetlands throughout history. Prescribed burning is the controlled application of fire used to accomplish a specific conservation or land management goal. Prescribed burning recycles nutrients tied up in old plant growth, controls many woody plants and herbaceous weeds and also stimulates new plant growth, especially in native plants and wildflowers.

First place, age 14-18, 2004
Dan Treul
Ada, MI

In an age of gargantuan vehicles, dirty skies and rising gasoline prices, students of the 21st Century are made increasingly aware of the glaring environmental problems surrounding them.... Managed by the school's Environmental Science classes, students at Central have initiated a simple yet effective recycling program that salvages the untold amounts of paper the school would normally throw away each day. Contrary to widely-held though incorrect belief, conservation does not necessarily entail mass sacrifice. Environmental programs such as the one being conducted at Forest Hills Central requires neither significant sacrifice nor resources. What's needed is increased recognition of the present threat to our environment accompanied by unselfish action to confront it.

First place, age 8-13, 2004
Caroline Schuitema
Ada, MI

...Carelessly discarded [cigarette] butts and wrappers litter our roads and start many wildfires. My mom and I walked our dog one mile and found 53 butts and four cigarette packages... I think this problem could be solved if there were a deposit on butts, like there is on pop cans. The cigarette package could have a noncombustible envelope on the side to put your butt in when you were done smoking. Each butt would have a 10-cent deposit, which the smoker would get back when they returned the package to the store. Money collected but not redeemed by the smoker could be used for fighting fires. I think having a deposit on smokers' butts would make them think twice about throwing them out their windows!

Second place,
age 14-18, 2004
Amanda Letcavage
St. Clair Shores, MI

Used tires pollute the earth. There are way too many of them. Every once in a while, huge mounds of tires catch fire and cause air pollution. Mosquitoes mate inside [water that collects in] the tires, and because of the West Nile virus scare, we really don't need any more mosquitoes. The problem can easily be solved by making something creative out of tires, like tire swings...lots and lots of tire swings.

Second place, age 8-13, 2004
Michael Ferdinande
Macomb, MI

How would you like it if you were a bird living in your natural environment, in a safe nest...when along comes a convoy of big yellow bulldozers and wipes the forest clean, which leaves you to hunt for food and a new home by yourself? These days, everyone wants to build more houses or a new mall when there's vacant buildings all over town that can be used for a store. Plus, after they build more houses, they need to build a new school for all the kids to go to. So that's even more trees and natural environments that are going to need to be torn down. But there is a solution...to build a park in the natural environments so people can walk through the forest and look at animals who inhabit it. The animals can continue to live a safe life away from harm.