Festival of Minds Presentation

Kate Miller co-presents with Jennifer Burgin, a kindergarten teacher who recently went to the Galapagos through the National Geographic Lindblad Expedition Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship, at Festival of Minds. Festival of Minds is a professional learning conference run by Arlington Public Schools that provides a diversity of sessions for all PK-12 instructional staff to hone their instructional practice (https://www.apsva.us/fom/). Kate and Jennifer's presentation is titled "From the South Pole to the Galapagos - Teacher Modeling Exploration." In this session, Kate and Jennifer share their experiences at the South Pole and the Galapagos, respectively, highlighting wonderings such as "How do scientists survive and thrive in such an extreme, remote location?" Then, Kate and Jennifer lead teacher through a "walk and wonder" exercise where 15 minutes is spent walking around the school campus taking pictures of things participants wonder about, 5 minutes is spent with each person sharing his/her favorite wondering's picture, and 10 minutes if spent brainstorming how to take that wondering back to participants' various classroom contexts. The presentation concludes with reference to an "Explorer Educator Resources" sheet which provides information on how teachers could apply to teacher-researcher opportunities (such as PolarTREC) and highlights the wealth of real-world resources available online (such as the PolarTREC lesson plan bank). Although only two teachers attended, this session was very successful and positive feedback was given.

Jennifer and Kate pose in front of their presentation entitled From the South Pole to the Galapagos - Teachers Modeling Exploration. After choosing one teacher's picture of a solar panel in the courtyard, teachers brainstormed how to bring wonderings from that photo back to their individual classroom contexts.