“The congratulations email we got from Fund for Teachers on April 4 about our grant said “This is just the beginning…”  Little did we know how true that sentiment was…”

So began the note from 2019 FFT Fellow Kelly Whitaker. She and team mate Sherry Grogan (Monroe Area High School – Monroe, GA) designed their fellowship to collect data and capture 360 video in the Galapagos Islands to inspire scientific field experiences in Georgia that culminate in student presentations at elementary and middle schools intended to pique student interest in biology. Now, photos from their fellowship will also help fund conservation efforts of the Islands.

“My team member, Sherry Grogan, submitted some photos to the photography competition for the Galapagos Conservancy.  She was notified this weekend that one of her photos of a lava lizard (above) had received an Honorable Mention and will be in the 2020 calendar.”

Read on to see more of “Team Darwin’s” adventures:

What Changed As A Result of Your Fellowship?

Sherry: “I pushed the limits of my comfort zone routinely while in the Galapagos. I learned to snorkel and engaged with land and sea creatures while shooting 360 videos and taking pictures. Learning in this manner has shown me the importance of capturing student interest in every unit and I feel that I am better equipped to make this happen after the fellowship. Students will surely perform higher in the evolution unit with newly designed lessons of 360 VR experiences and having studied Darwin’s work.”

Kelly: “As my teammate said, ‘We showed up as teachers and we are leaving as students. Our ‘I wonder…’ list is a mile long; our confidence has exploded; our friendship bond is rock solid. The emotional impact was more than I could have imagined. I sat in a panga with six other people with tears rolling down my cheeks at my first sighting of a blue footed booby. I found out that I can’t cry and snorkel at the same time, when I was bobbing in water with penguins.”

How Do You See Your Teaching Evolving?

Sherry: “I will be entering my 22nd year of teaching next year. This fellowship has completely overhauled my passion for teaching and finding ways to spark interest in my students. I have already tentatively created a plan for involving some portion of the “Galapagos” in each unit. I think this recurring theme will brilliantly help the students learn about such a fascinating place on earth, while also mastering the standards in Biology.”

Kelly: “Our students are going to see our excitement and come up with their own ‘I wonder…’ lists. Our students will be able to ‘visit’ the Galapagos using our 360 video and still shots. They will have a connection to this material that they didn’t have before. We are already looking at the photos we want to exhibit in the elementary schools and middle schools. Our students will have a different level of engagement due to this connection.”

How will your students learn differently because of your new knowledge or skills?

Sherry: “With all of the footage we shot (i.e., 360 video, photographs, 360 still photos, etc), we have a new approach to many of our units. The photos will come to life in the classroom through the eyes of two very enthusiastic teachers who absolutely cannot stop talking about this trip with friends and family. I learned so much about myself as a teacher, reevaluated my students, and I am prepared to provide a growth opportunity for all students in my room with exciting new material!”

Kelly: “We wrote a grant for mini journals for every student, as well as for field trips to the state park and the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.  Sherry’s winning photograph with the Galapagos Conservancy inspired us to have a photo competition among our students. Our media specialist printed the winning photos and our principal ended up paying to frame them! (That’s the water lily picture below).

We also worked in some interdisciplinary activities. We invited the art teacher in to teach a mini-lesson in nature sketching. Our favorite language arts teacher taught a mini lesson on descriptive writing. And our math teacher did a lesson on data collection and also designed a geometry lesson for a putt putt golf course.

Lastly, while writing our grant proposal, we reached out to our mayor. This connection built a relationship and we felt completely comfortable inviting him in to our class to have a forum with our students about environmental decisions in our town. How cool is that? We presented him with the winning photo from the photo competition and he took it to city hall where it was displayed for a month. All because of the connections made during the development of our grant proposal.”

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Sherry Grogan has taught high school biology for 20 years after spending 8 years as a police officer. Dr. Kelly Whitaker is a special education co-teacher in Biology and Physics. Her previous summer adventures include riding a motorcycle, solo, across thirty states and 16,000 miles; hiking 500 miles across Northern Spain on the Camino de Santiago and climbing Mt. Katahdin. To order the Galapagos Conservatory’s 2020 calendar featuring Sherry’s photographs from her fellowship, click here.

The Wall Street Journal recently shared an article titled “It’s Never Too Late,” referring to how the “multiple cognitive peaks throughout our lives, and the talents and passions that we have to offer can emerge across a range of personal circumstances.” Such is the case for Larry Shortell, special education teacher at Explorations Charter School in Winstead, CT.

After serving in the US Navy, Larry became a SCUBA diving instructor, then earned a CDA Certification and worked in a daycare while earning his B.S. in Special Education at the University of Southern Florida. Next, he completed an MS in Education from Cambridge College and earned a Teaching English as a Foreign Language certificate and taught in Laos. Teaching has since taken him to classrooms in Florida, Hawaii, Alaska and, now, to the island of Bonaire as a Fund for Teachers Fellow.

Under the guidance of a university professor who specializes in ichthyology and the marine environment, Larry leaves next week to conduct in-depth, underwater research documenting the cruise industry’s impact on climate change. He will then use his findings to create science curriculum for special education and Adventure Education students, as well as members of the school’s Exotic, Endangered, or Extinct Animals Club and Environmental Concerns Club.

“I am a high school special education teacher (grades 9-12) in a school whose mission is to cultivates a positive attitude toward life-long learning in an experiential, non-traditional setting,” said Larry. “This fellowship will help me create multi-sensory, high interest learning for special and regular education students, as well as a mixture of students in the clubs that I lead. This approach should level the playing field for the special education students while simultaneously engaging their more advanced peers.”

Just as the article suggests, Larry designed his fellowship to expand upon his 20-year career as a special education teacher and also his passion for underwater conservation. Four years ago, the cruise ship industry descended upon Bonaire, just as the Council of International Educational Exchange’s research station closed. Larry plans to generate data that bridge resulting gaps in Bonaire’s sustainability model and establish protocols for the other Caribbean island’s reef systems.

Back at school, his impacts are geared toward modeling for students an understanding of education and life-long learning that involves the synthesis of experiences and knowledge.

“I want my students to understand that everything we learn and do in life can be used to construct a world view that incorporates balance and wonder,” said Larry. “I want them to see that effort and education can lead to adventures unimagined when we begin on a path of exploration.”

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Larry is the author of Summers Off: The Worldwide  Adventures of a School Teacher and Summers On: The Global Exploration of an Educator. You can also enjoy his nature photography here.

Students wielding knives at North Haven High School are par for the course – Traci Planinshek‘s Culinary Arts course. She teaches food preparation and presentation skills to her Family and Consumer Sciences students and envisions them as future members of the local workforce, supporting a community’s economy, ancestral traditions and personal nutrition. This trifecta of impact materialized in the form of an FFT fellowship focused on F.L.O.S.S.

Two years ago Traci planted a small school garden to support a curriculum promoting fresh, local, organic, seasonable and sustainable food (FLOSS). Student engagement increased as they experimented with produce, herbs and spices associated with the area’s first inhabitants, the Quinnipac tribe. Inspired to take the learning one step further, Traci used a Fund for Teachers grant to explore historic culinary movements of the Pacific Northwest, including contributions of indigenous people in that region.

 

Traci worked alongside chefs at Tillicum Village, an island off of Seattle promoting British Columbia tribes, and visited organic dairies and gardens on Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound. From the lock system supporting salmon migration to fishmongers of Pike Market and food trucks in Occidental Park, Traci observed the farm-to-table movement in action. All of these experiences harvested hands-on learning for her students, who produced a community-wide luncheon in collaboration with surrounding farms and vegetables from the school garden. Funds raised from the event supported five students’ participation in Disney’s “Cook Around World” contest in Orlando, FL.

 

“On field trips to farms around North Haven, students negotiated the purchase of produce while witnessing the passion for what is, for many owners, decades of a family business,” said Traci. “Teenagers took responsibility for their own learning and developed an awareness of the required work ethic for this local citizenry.”

Even if students choose to pursue careers outside the food industry, Traci feels confident in their futures. She embeds literacy, numeracy skills, science – and now history and culture – into every lesson, giving students opportunities to develop critical thinking skills and cooperative learning capabilities sought out by employers.

“Having the financial support to follow something that I’m so passionate about was beyond words,” said Traci. “I feel that many times teachers are not validated, but this grant changed that for me and now I incorporate that energy into the daily curriculum — passing on that spirit and learning on to my students.”