Can someone please cue Alice Cooper now?
The last bell rang on June 8th this year, the earliest since I started teaching 21 years ago. This was partially due to the fact that our system got rid of traditional snow days, casualties of the new tech world that swallowed our school system due to COVID-19.
Goals for summer included travel, researching Arctic history and environment, building photography skills, revising the Arctic Geopolitics course I taught last year, setting a solid plan in place for how to share the Greenland Subglacial Tremor Project in authentic ways, and formulating partnerships with organizations and institutions that help with disseminating educational materials, information, data, and the expedition experience.
Traveling Out And About
Charlotte Amalie Evening. Photo by Erin Towns
“Traveling - it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” - Ibn Battuta
Ever since I was a young child, I was fascinated about far away places. I was an oppositional student prone to always being off task and talking to my neighbors, so much so that my desk had to be placed away from the rest of my classmates to keep me focused. One of the only things that would keep me quiet happened to be stories from around the world. I have an innate passion for travel and after a year of not doing so outside of my own state, I took opportunities to visit family that had relocated to Puerto Rico twice in the spring and then to St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands for relaxation two days after school got out.
Trip goals in Puerto Rico included collecting imagery for lessons designed about the power of water. Students can better understand impacts of sea level rise on society and economics around the world by studying places and relationships to polar regions. Our expedition goals are related to the impact of glacial hydrology on rising sea levels around the world. Building upon the last PolarTREC journal written about students connecting their own backyard to the Arctic, the goal is to include more about impacts of polar climate change on national and international life.
Wind turbine blades were shredded or missing in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. The Power of Water Series. Photo by Erin Towns
I Know Nothing
“The height on which I stand and the pure air which surrounds me, give me a wide outlook, and I see our sledge tracks in the white snow out over the edge of the earth’s circumference through the uttermost lands of men to the North. I see, as a mirage, the thousand little native villages which gave substance to the journey. And I am filled with a great joy; we have met the great adventure which always awaits him who knows how to grasp it, and that adventure was made up of all our manifold experiences among the most remarkable people in the world!"
“Slowly we have worked our way forward by unbeaten tracks, and everywhere we have increased our knowledge.”
A portrait of Knud Rasmussen, ethnographer and writer. He led the Fifth Thule Expedition to the Inuit of Arctic North America 1921-1924. (Source:Kenn Harper Collection)
Between 1921-1924, Greenlandic polar explorer and anthropologist, Knud Rasmussen successfully completed a 20,000 mile trek by dog sled from Greenland to Siberia. Reading Rasmussen’s observations in, Across Arctic America, I could not help but think of how to share observations, experiences, data, and information about the Greenland Subglacial Tremor Project with students and communities in really engaging and meaningful ways that leave an impression and encourage action. Part of the summer is dedicated to learning about successful educational strategies from experts, developing skills with digital and drone photography, and connecting with organizations dedicated to advancement of knowledge about polar education that can assist us.
Employing the philosophy of knowing nothing lends itself well to being willing to learn from others. The following people are smart because they consistently develop their talents, are willing to connect and learn from professional experiences and other educators, and most importantly, share their knowledge generously with others.
Teacher of Action
2020 National Geographic Gilbert M. Grosvenor Educator of the year Jen Chavez-Miller. Photo credit: Jasper Doest courtesy of Jen Chavez Miller
Jen Chavez Miller is one of the best teachers I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Humble, smart, innovative and gracious are words that describe her well.
Jen and I met at National Geographic Headquarters during orientation sessions for the Grosvenor Teacher Fellow Program in 2018 and hung out in Germany for a few weeks that same year as participants in a seminar called Education in Germany funded by the German-American Fulbright Commission. Throughout our travels, Jen revealed herself to be at heart, a woman who truly championed her students above all and using global professional development experiences and resources, found really intriguing ways that inspired students to take action in authentic ways.
Think Global Teach Local, Vamos Explorar Photo taken from Jen Chavez-Miller’s Think Global Teach Local website.
How she did this was by designing an innovative geo-inquiry project called Vamos Explorar: Conserving and Protecting New Mexico’s Wild Places. The goal was to encourage her 8th grade students to see themselves as explorers and protectors of wilderness areas in New Mexico. She used funding opportunities and education strategies introduced to her as alumni of the GTF Program to empower her students to act. It was wildly successful because students are the heart of any geo-inquiry project and they are directly connected to work that is relevant to life in their own backyards. They experience things first hand as they explore.
Jen's project is a stellar example of how well students learn using this strategy. A few years ago our students at ELHS completed a project on a much smaller scale and earned themselves a new stoplight from the city at a busy intersection that they felt unsafe in. National Geographic Education’s Geo-Inquiry Process will serve as the catalyst for a project related to sea level rise created and designed for the Greenland Subglacial Tremor Project. Dr. Sarah Das, lead scientist and I are discussing citizen science project ideas and will further develop them as the year wears on. We are lucky to have this extra time to plan and are motivated to take full advantage of it.
Artist-Explorer Extraordinaire
2018 PolarTREC teacher and author Wendi Pillars. Image courtesy Wendi Pillars
I met Wendi Pillars the same day I met Jen at National Geographic Headquarters where she presented an interesting visual strategy backed by neuroscience called visual note-taking. We were given a copy of her first book, Visual Note-Taking for Educators: A Teacher’s Guide to Student Creativity and upon return, began implementing these strategies to help students explore and understand the world.
Students use visual notes to connect and compare technological development in ancient civilization centers to the Arctic.
What I found over the past few years is that visual learning works because it increases engagement with content, and improves information retention and understanding dramatically. Visuals are concrete and more easily remembered. According to Pillars, “it exercises students’ kinesthetic, auditory, linguistic, and verbal modalities, offers tangible, immediate insight that teachers can use to gauge and build upon comprehension, generates dopamine surge for pleasure, oxytocin surge due to love and trust that underrides success, and a decrease in cortisol associated with stress, nourishes the brain’s love for connections, imagery, and storytelling, and promotes critical thinking, synthesizing, and problem solving. Above all, it is fun.”
Part of summer work includes reading Pillar’s second book, Visual Impact! to gain more insight and ideas and to improve the use of this strategy with our students.
The Photographer
Dave Dostie, “From Six Feet Away.” Image taken from Dave Dostie Photography website.
Dave Dostie is a Maine photographer who, during the COVID-19 shutdown, started a documentary photography project entitled, From Six Feet Away. I was employed at that time as a pizza delivery driver for Cushnoc Brewing Co. and Dave asked if he could photograph me for the series. During conversations about life during COVID-19, the PolarTREC Teacher Program and the Greenland expedition came up.
Prior to this time, although always one for taking photos, I had never had a professional camera or any instruction in photography. Dave was kind enough to teach me a few things and then gifted me one of his old cameras, a Nikon D7100. Refusing any money for it, he told me to learn the camera, then when I was done with it, pay it forward and give the camera to someone else. It was quite something knowing that Dave was passing on knowledge to people he might not ever know. It was a true gift of his knowledge, time, and generosity. I am eternally grateful for his expert help.
Part of our Geopolitics of the Arctic course incorporates visual arts standards, and as such, it has been a year and a half long process of learning as much as possible about the technology and art of digital and drone photography. It is rewarding, calming, exciting, and super frustrating all at the same time. Dave is kind enough to answer every single question I have ever sent him, Summer has been spent thus far concentrating on building digital photography skills including focus, lighting, animal and landscape photography, studying for certifications and drone license, and developing unique concepts and perspectives.
Aerial view of solar field construction. Photo by Erin Towns
Drone photography is a wholly different creature. Mastering hand and eye coordination skills, creating flight patterns, setting up perspective shots, editing, and post film production take up the majority of time. Technology takes practice, so there is a ton of time devoted to practicing while traveling around the neighborhood and Maine. Photographer Henri Cartier Bresson says it best. “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”
An Evening on the Kennebec River: Flipped Drone Perspective. Photo by Erin Towns
The goal ultimately is to use everything learned about photography and drones to document and share the story of the Greenland Subglacial Tremor Project.
Creating Partnerships
Lastly, summer provides time to be able to explore different organizations to assist with learning about and incorporating effective strategies to teach about polar regions and sharing expedition experiences.
Polar Educators International Website https://polareducator.org/. Photo taken from the PEI website
I found myself an unexpected seat on an advisory board for Polar Educators International, an organization which I came to find out after acceptance, was started by Sarah Crowley and Janet Warburton. I figured I had nothing to lose so why not try. It has been cool to meet educators and researchers from all over the world working with this organization.
The mission of the organization is, “connecting polar education, research, and the global community.” It includes a network of educators (many of them PolarTREC teachers), and researchers who work together “to provide deeper understanding of current polar sciences to a global audience.”
The advisory board meets and works together on topics related to curriculum, public relations, local, national, and global conferences, equity and diversity, sharing of knowledge, and strengthening the PEI network. Check out the PEI Website for information about conferences, webinars, free master classes, and blogs, along with a Polar Resource Book and tons more.
Stretching out with an early morning swim. Pocasset Lake, Wayne Maine. Photo by Erin Towns
While it seems busy, I am lucky to have some down time in between and can usually be found swimming with friends in Maine lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. Fun times! Hope everyone is enjoying summer!
Add new comment