The upcoming fellowship of Meghan Slesinski and Emily Mamaclay would make the organizers of the United Nation’s World Oceans Day proud: It will also make their students at Highcrest Elementary School in Wethersfield, CT, more aware of their responsibility to preserve healthy oceans and ecosystems. Here, Meghan outlines how she and Emily plan to explore Alaska’s oceans, geology, and evidence of humanity’s relationship with the environment through a scientific lens to broaden current curricula and help students understand and appreciate the importance of water as a natural resource.

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Happy World Oceans Day! 

For our summer learning experience we chose to travel to Alaska, the only Arctic region in the United States.  We will engage in science education focusing on Alaska’s unique geological and ecological history. Alaska has 94,743 square miles of water and has more than 40% of the nation’s surface water resources including over 12000 rivers and 3 million lakes. Three quarters of Earth’s freshwater comes from glaciers and Alaska is home to over 100,000 glaciers. We will spend 10 days on our summer fellowship exploring and learning about Earth’s water, the integral part it plays in all ecosystems and how to behave as global citizens in our quest to preserve this precious resource.  

Our first stop on our educational adventure will be Anchorage, Alaska.  While in Anchorage we will learn about what Alaska is doing to protect Earth’s resources and environment. We will meet with the museum educator at the Alaska Museum of Science & Nature to learn about efforts to preserve the unique biodiversity of Alaska and about the human activities in industry and everyday life that have had major effects on the ocean. We will also tour the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Lab and learn about the effects of oil on wildlife, bodies of water and shorelines and the efforts employed to clean up after this man-made disaster. We will be able to view an exhibit that has photographic and map comparisons of Anchorage when it was covered first by ice and then drowned in the ocean. We will also learn the story of the last Ice Age in Alaska and the glaciers that remain.  Before departing, we will also meet with educators at the Anchorage Museum, as well as a naturalist at the Alaskan Conservation Center.

Next we will travel to Denali National Park & Preserve to view unspoiled nature and crystal clear lakes. We will take excursions to hear about the ecology, geology, and wildlife of this area. Our guides will share information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect Earth’s resources and environment. 

Our “off the beaten path” guide will share their deep knowledge and help us to experience this rich setting. We will explore glacier-fed, braided rivers, spot cascading ice-falls and the occasional plummeting avalanche, and observe how the ebb and flow of ancient glacial ice shaped the landscape. We will visit and learn about a variety of glaciers. We will be able to witness the calving of glaciers, and learn about sea ice and towering icebergs. Our visit to Denali will include a viewing of Ruth Glacier, a 40-mile-long glacier that flows through the granite-walled Great Gorge – the world’s deepest trench. 

Our learning adventure will end in Fairbanks, Alaska. We will take a geothermal renewable energy tour at Chena Hot Springs which is where the Aurora Ice Museum is located. The Aurora Ice Museum is the world’s largest year round ice environment! It was created from over 1,000 tons of ice and snow. The museum was completed in January 2005 and stays a cool 25° Fahrenheit (-7° Celsius) inside thanks to the geothermal water machine. During our tour we will learn about this energy saving project as well as others that have been utilized in this location. 

By bringing back authentic examples of individuals who have fought to preserve the environment in Alaska, we believe these climate action role models will strengthen students’ beliefs about their own ability to play a key role in affecting positive change on the environment. Our students will learn about water’s integral part in our survival and the survival of our ecosystems as they “go along” on our journey through our blog and vlogs. A new unit, Earth’s water and how it cycles through Earth’s systems and affects human societies, will include a variety of inquiry based learning tasks, exploring the world’s ecosystems, their reliance on water, and our responsibility as global citizens to preserve the environment. Our plan is to have our students seek out similar experts in their own communities and interview those individuals and create their own vlogs that can be posted on our district website for the community at large.

This fellowship will allow us to meet with locals, naturalists, museum educators, and scientists. We will be able to visit exhibits, take part in environmental tours, conduct science experiments, and immerse ourselves in unique and authentic undertakings. We will have the opportunity to gather a multitude of resources and stories to bring back to our students. The stories, personal experiences, documents and artifacts obtained will provide depth to our science units. The proposed learning gained from our journey will inform our content and in turn provide opportunities for inquiry based learning to occur for our students. This fellowship will enable us to drive our curriculum in a way that only this experience can provide.  

Barbara Walters said, “Most of us have trouble juggling. The woman who says she doesn’t is someone whom I admire but have never met.” FFT Fellow Helen Dole, however, seems to be managing fairly well. Helen teaches sixth grade at Lower Manhattan Community Middle School in New York City. With her teammate Molly Goodell, she and five-month-old daughter Sophie Tilmant set off for Alaska this summer to tour boreal forest, coastal, tundra, and glacial ecosystems and collect first-hand evidence of climate change for a sixth grade unit called Human Impacts. She shares some of her experiences below…

Why was it vital for you to pursue this particular opportunity/experience?

An educator in Denali shares with us about the methane that is being released as a result of permafrost melting.

We teach in a school that has students from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds. Some students have second homes in the Hamptons, while others have grandparents/aunts/uncles cousins all under the same small roof in Chinatown. We previously did a Human Impact project; students relied on internet searches to source information. Now we have brought real data; photos, interviews, and our stories to ALL of our students–we are bringing the world to them even if they have yet to board a plane.

I now see the bigger picture in a deeper way and I’m more passionate about making my students ‘see’ it, too. It’s easy to read articles about climate change and cognitively understand what is happening. It’s an entirely different boat to stand by the sign showing where a glacier was just 10 years ago (and now it’s ice-free) and not viscerally feel how the world is being affected.

Why was this opportunity transformative for your teaching on a macro-level?

On our heli-hike adventure, we learned how about it’s not how warm it is, but rather the length of the growing season that is changing the vegetation.

Teaching is a joy and a grind. You are always “on;” engaging with students in person, families via email, via google docs with colleagues, or in person at staff meetings. This opportunity allowed me to turn my brain to a different mode from the regular routine. I was learning, yes, but in a more open and unencumbered way than the minute-by-minute schedule of a middle school environment. I landed back in NYC feeling enriched and invigorated for the year ahead.

Also, we experience the world through storytelling and now, our stories are going to be much richer and more vivid; filled with cutting edge science and personal anecdotes from our time in Alaska. They will be able to cite specific examples — equisetum plants spreading, the number of days above 50 degrees Fahrenheit North of the Arctic Circle, soil that doesn’t hold rain, roadways decimated from melting permafrost, increased frequency of wildfires, heavier snowfalls in winter, methane gas being released at an alarming rate, the list goes on — and then have teacher stories/images to connect to these sometimes hard-to-internalize science facts.

How did your fellowship changed your personal and/or professional perspective?

In 2010, the ice used to be where we’re standing.

I went into this fellowship with the understanding that I was traveling with my co-teacher, Molly, and that we would strengthen our co-teaching skills on this trip. I didn’t know how much so, though! I traveled with my 5-month-old infant, so I relied on Molly in SO many ways for support and sanity. This journey to Alaska was like the ultimate trust-builder. If students thought we completed each other’s sentences BEFORE this trip, now they’re going to think communicate telepathically!

Additionally, living in a city, it is easy to go about my day and not feel fundamentally affected by climate change. My food, my transportation, my workplace, and home are all far enough removed from Mother Earth that I am not forced to see how climate change is a real thing affecting real people, animals, and plants. On this fellowship, I was able to witness how ice has shifted, plants and animals have migrated, and people have altered their ways of life because of a warming planet.

And finally, what we’re all here for…What did Sophie think?

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Helen is in her 15th year of teaching. She is a New York City Teaching Fellow, Math for America Master Teacher, and former Department of Energy Teacher as Scientist. She believes in helping students to see science in their everyday lives; continually striving to make connections between their world and the science they are learning about. Outside the classroom she is a passionate runner. She’s a proud mom to two young children.

The name of our 49th state derives from the Aleut word alyeska, or “great land.” Many FFT Fellows would agree after experiencing the culture and ecology of the land that – 151 years ago today – was acquired from Russia for $7.2 million. In celebration of Alaska Day, enjoy the following images, insights and impact of grant recipients’ learning in “The Last Frontier.”

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2018

Panning for gold in Mineral Creek.

Robin Barboza-Josephson & Catherine Gardner (New Milford High School – New Milford, CT) joined an expedition through the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge and Denali National Park to demonstrate the work of scientists and move ecology education to a model supporting Next Generation Science Standards. (Featured in clip above.)

“We hope to trigger a need for changes in human behavior to try and combat global warming before it is too late. I hope that by sharing my photos and experiences with them, they will realize that their behavior here (4000 miles away) still has an impact on environments they have never seen before.”

Listening to a lecture by Sheeren on Glacier Bay.

August 9th marks the first meeting of the United Nations’ Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1982 and the occasion designated by the UN General Assembly for honoring 370 million Indigenous People living across 90 countries who remain subject to political, economic and social oppression.

Indigenous People are defined as ethnic groups originally in a territory prior to being
incorporated into a national state, and who are politically and culturally separate from the majority ethnic identity of the state that they are a part of.

This summer, fourteen Fund for Teachers Fellows chose to research Indigenous People on three continents to increase student awareness and appreciation of the history, culture and challenges faced by those also known as first peoples, aboriginal peoples and native peoples. Read on to see how these teachers pursued knowledge of and experience among these inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment.*

Charles FitzGibbon and Christine Faye Dunbar (Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School– Forest Hills, NY) used photo journalism and oral interviews to examine the immediate effects of climate change on coastal Alaskan natives. They plan use their research to convey to students the interaction between individuals, communities, government policy and the climate.

Charles inspecting ice caves beneath Mendenhall Glacier on a hot day in Juneau, AK.

Their excellent blog documenting the fellowship begins:

“We are two teachers from a public 6-12 school in Queens, New York, who are traveling this summer to Alaska on a research grant from Fund for Teachers. We’re passionate about the work we engage our students in, and strive to make learning as relevant and real-world as possible. Our mission this summer is to research the impacts of climate change on coastal
communities, particularly those in the arctic region who are facing the more drastic effects of warming temperatures, melting permafrost, and land erosion. Namely we seek to answer three key research questions:

What challenges do coastal Alaskan communities face in the age of climate change?

How do borders ensure, enshrine, and entrap the communities of coastal Alaska?

What can be done to preserve and affirm the cultures of indigenous peoples as climate change threatens the future of their communities?”

For 21 days, Christine and Charles explored Juneau, Nome, Shishmaref, Fairbanks, and Prudhoe Bay, providing a broad scope of how climate change is impacting the state, its economy and social fabric. Click here to see what they discovered.

Glen Meinschein, Greg Gentile and Alejandro Avalos (Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies) investigated of one of the most controversial figures in Mexican history, “La Malinche,”
by exploring across Mexico themes of colonialism, feminism and indigenous history to engage students of different backgrounds and support their academic achievement.

This blog documents their experiences, characterized by the sentence, “It was unsettling how much of our investigation of her has resulted in silence, shrugs or lack of any answers or any significant information.”

Exploring Xochimilco, a part of Mexico City where Aztecs built floating islands, or chinampas.

Learning about the Huran Wendat tribe on the Wendake Reservation.

Renee Lukaniec (Fox Run Elementary – Norwalk, CT) was handed a curriculum, outdated textbooks and asked to teach a unit on Native Americans three years ago. The search for authentic information and artifacts inspired her Fund for Teachers fellowship living and learning on the Huron-Wendat Nation reservation in Quebec. Read more of her experiences here.

Michelle Broxterman and Rachel Southard (Westside Elementary – Pittsburg, KS) chose to investigate with their Fund for Teachers grant the Mashallese people, culture and environment because their classes increasingly welcome immigrants from the cluster of small islands in the Pacific Ocean. Despite the contingency of immigrants living in their small town, the teachers found that many people have no idea where the Marshall Islands are. Their goal is to reach, teach and assimilate Marshallese students and families – and to educate the community about their new neighbors. In their grant proposal, Michelle and Rachel wrote:

“The Marshall Islands face numerous obstacles resulting from global warming and continued effects of nuclear testing. According to scientists, the Marshall Islands could be underwater within our lifetime. These looming threats have resulted in a mass immigration of over 20,000 Marshallese people living in the US. Although there has been a large influx of Marshallese people, their language and culture are relatively unknown and seem to be gradually disappearing along with their islands. We feel an urgency to gain as much information as we can now because later may not be an option.”

Rachel and Michelle checked in after their fellowship:

Our fellowship took us to Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, for an amazing experience. We were able to ride on a traditional Marshallese canoe, sample local foods and gain a deeper understanding of the nation’s history. In addition, we studied the Marshallese educational system and toured an elementary school.

The most meaningful part of our fellowship was spending time with the people. We were welcomed with open arms by relatives of our Marshallese students. They ensured that we were able to learn a large amount of
information in a short period of time. It was obvious that generosity, caring, resilience and hospitality were and continue to be key attributes in the Marshallese culture. It is our hope that from our fellowship, we will help our Marshallese students to be proud of their heritage and continue on their traditions.

Additional 2017 Fellows focusing on First Peoples include:

• Kelly Shea and Sherry McCullough – Meeting with Maori guides and professors from the University of Auckland in New Zealand,to learn how the Maori use storytelling to represent cultural values and unify community for a new “Power of Language” unit (pictured above with guide Robert McDonald on top of Te Mata Peak).
• Rebekah and Robert Polemeni – Investigating in five national parks the impact of climate change, with a specific focus on drought and indigenous peoples, to guides students’
  creation of a local service project based on water conservation.
• Amy Manware – Volunteering with conservation groups and native communities in Hawaii to
  learn about ecological restoration, explore the impact of water on ecosystems and create blended learning activities that integrate Next Generation Science Standards and enrich STEM and instructional technology curricula.
• David Hunt – Investigating the effect of 1800’s Westward Expansion on the American
  Tribes of Arizona, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Montana to better teach topics including The Trail of Tears, Battle of Apache Pass and surrender of Geronimo, Battle of Wounded Knee and the Battle of Little Big Horn.
• Judie Cavanaugh – Exploring the art and culture of Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific
  Northwest to integrate art lessons with social studies curriculum.
• Rebecca Cutkomp – Exploring Washington’s Spokane Indian Reservation and Alaska’s Denali National Park to enrich student learning in thematic units on identity and aid in students’ deeper insight into rhetorical analysis.
• Timothy Kiser and Vincent McCollum – Exploring Dominica’s history and geography through an intersectionality  lens of race and colonization to better understand two central questions: How did the Kalinago survive while others did not? and why do the Kalinago continue to thrive? And,
• Samantha Verboven – Observing Alaska’s Native American population and the culture of
  storytelling to create a after school writing club based on reader’s theater designed to improve oral storytelling techniques and the narrative writing process.

Click on the following links for further research accomplished by previous Fund for Teachers Fellows on:

The ‘Namgis
The Maori

The Aborigines
The Lakota Sioux, Blackfoot and Salish Peoples

The Zapotec
The Navajo, and

The Incas

* Indigenous People at the UN web site