Laura Parker Roerden is the executive director and founder of Ocean Matters and serves on the boards of Women Working for Oceans and Earth, Ltd. and is a member of the Pleiades Network of women leaders in sustainability. She is the former managing editor of Educators for Social Responsibility (now Engaging Schools) and New Designs for Youth Development, as well as the author of Net Lessons: Web-Based Projects for Your Classroom.
In the late 1960s, a fire on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland from industrial pollution became a galvanizing image in…