Elgin Wolfe graduated with distinction from the University of Toronto, Ontario Agricultural College with a BSA in 1961, obtained a BEd from the College of Education, Toronto in 1962 and an MEd in 1976. He was a teacher, department head and assistant coordinator of science with the North York Board of Education from 1962 - 1969. Since that time he has been on the professorial staff of first The Ontario College of Education, then the Faculty of Education and today the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

During his teaching career he authored or co-authored nine secondary school science texts and associated teachers' guides, one assessment bank, one film strip series and over twenty assessment rubrics. During his years in teacher education he prepared over 35 content/methodology modules for use in the pre-service and additional qualification courses. He was one of the authors and the principal investigator of the Ontario Assessment Instrument Pool: Physics published in 1983.

Elgin was president of the Science Teachers' Association of Ontario in 1971-72 and has been a keynote speaker at many of its conferences. He was the first recipient of the Science Teachers' Association of Ontario Award of Excellence in the Teaching of Science in 1980 and was made a life member of STAO in 1994. He received two awards for teaching excellence from the Faculty of Education, University of Toronto Student Union, the first in 1992 and the second in 1995. He is one of approximately 100 great teachers listed on the University of Toronto Office of Teaching Advancement web site. In 2008, at the end of his 45th year of teaching he received an Award for Distinguished Contributions to Teaching from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.