[Applause]
ha
flying 1500 feet above ground level
soaring between mountain peaks dotting
the coastline of southeastern Greenland
viewing and observing pressure ridges
built up from collisions of floating sea
ice over the North Pole these visions of
the High Arctic I’ve been feeling like
more like I would have fallen into a
fictional chalk beneath all Americans of
Burt rather than actually living such an
experience as our fearless pilots
maintain a steady speed low to the
ground a reference we’re flying 1500
feet above our surface your average
commercial airliner place close to
30,000 feet as they flew us I maintain
that steady speed we were viewing parts
of the planet that no human could ever
touch viewing a snapshot in time of the
icy north that will never again look the
way it looked in the instant that we
passed over I never thought that I would
have the chance to experience such
thrilling beauty beyond what’s available
in textbooks and online resources but
somehow here I was a teacher from go
down to Pennsylvania walking around with
an old p3 aircraft turned airborne
laboratory that comes in submarines in
the military hunter came to us for the
time was picky and in the springtime of
2016
those 16 priorities science missions in
the architect as I tried to absorb and
process the sheer beauty and extreme
beauty of some of the most sensitive
regions of our planet my mind was
spinning trying to figure out how I
could translate this experience to my
classroom I knew I would be creating
deliverables that align for the science
content of each mission and any way
would be providing outreach talks
lessons media interviews I’ve had even
translate the feelings the renewed
hunger for learning and intense
responsibility toward our earth and its
sustainability back to middle and high
school students at home that haven’t
been able to experience the same thing I
want to talk to you today about the
power of experience fulfillment as an
educator and how that fulfillment can
translate into our interactions with our
students they show us time and time
again don’t take that influence and run
with it if it resonates with them
they’re becoming our teachers our
leaders our world changers and in order
to best support them we need to make
sure that we’re fulfilled in our work
sometimes that comes down to finding the
right opportunities outside of the
classroom in professional development
opportunities perhaps or in adventures
that align with your passions one of the
greatest pieces of advice that I
received from some wise individual
during my undergraduate career was to
check yourself every two years in your
work every two years and make sure that
you’re happy and while you’re doing is
it’ll show and for me I came into
teaching along a non-traditional path
and at the two-year mark I was still
happy and I loved working with my
students and it passed over that five
year work and ventually it was a decade
schools along the way but I was nervous
about becoming unfulfilled Network
becoming from police and as an educator
perhaps not the best that could be for
my students not giving what I was
capable of giving to offer them support
while I didn’t want to leave the work I
was doing
I found a point where I felt like
something was missing
so I started seeking out opportunities
that aligned with my content but that
also provided an opportunity to build a
broader global perspective for myself
along the way and through lots of
falling on my face eventually I
discovered my love for polar regions and
realized I had a position to open up
this part of our world to every student
and colleague I come in contact with
every day maybe along the way
influencing some career direction or
uncovering some great ideas or hidden
passion in my students that would allow
them to affect change by work through an
almost desperate leave to explore I
found myself in a wonderfully lucky
position to participate in some
transformational professional
development that allowed me to
rediscover that fulfillment one of those
opportunities was called polar truck
polar truck as a program supported by
the National Science Foundation NASA and
NOAA that pairs k-12 educators with
polar research news allows the teachers
to integrate into a field campaign where
the teachers can connect with their
students from the fields and then create
materials to bring back to their
communities same coorporate polar
science education back home the
experience that I described in the
beginning was a glimpse into my polar
type experience based in Greenland
flying along with NASA’s operation
IceBridge the largest airborne survey of
Earth’s polar ice equipped with a suite
of remote sense
that allowed us to collect data on
priority nations and regions of CX on
May 3rd 2016 I fool my first science
light with the IceBridge team and as we
connected and shout of his students
virtually from our online class in the
air we dropped down to that 1,500 feet
and started collecting data along the
North Pole transects and in that
powerful moment I was taken not only by
the beauty of our planet these regions
of our birth that have been letting us
know about the threat of climate change
for decades but also by the sheer
technology that had literally kept all
of us safe as we flew over crevasse
fields and deep ice creams carved out by
meltwater on its way to the sea the
aircraft itself was a feat of
Engineering an integral part of the data
collection puzzle which helps us
understand our dynamic hopefully at a
little better each day so as I try to
absorb this wonderful amazing place I
realized there there was so much more
available to us than what we can see
with their eyes see we’re trying to
uncover the story that was held within
the X so our airplane was equipped with
light our radar infrared cameras
high-resolution digital mapping systems
and an expert team of scientists
engineers and flight
who could troubleshoot any technical
issues on the spot
they were the realized projection of
collaboration phenomena driven lesson
modules project-based learning
everything that we know is important to
include in our classrooms to engage
students in STEM disciplines was right
here in this incredible field of science
so important to us the airplane itself
was equipped with these remote sensing
tools that helped us uncover layer by
layer what was beneath the surface of
the ice where we were limited by the
abilities of our own senses light gave
us topographic maps of the ice that
we’re flying just a few feet above radar
gave us information about the thickness
of snow cover on sea ice and where the
layer of firm or compacted granules of
water on its way to being the lead
crystallized into glaciers began in
engine infrared cameras helped us find
leaves or long narrow openings and see
is revealing open water providing a
reference point for measuring freeboard
the height of sea ice above sea level
we flew flight lines that match
satellite tracks from the European Space
Agency’s cryo sac laser altimetry
instrument and we collected data that
bridged information from nasa’s icesat
one and which will be continued in the
very near future by nasa’s icesat tube
in every eight plus our mission that we
flew in our 30-day field campaign i
realized i had more questions than
the more I learned the more I needed and
wanted to know digging beneath the
surface in the story of the Arctic
became more complex and exhilarating
than I could have imagined
the goal was to uncover the stories that
were held within the ice that were very
beneath what’s visible to the human eye
and effect the things a little bit how
about how the work we are doing on this
airborne lab is similar to what most of
us do in our classrooms every day
using every tool in our toolbox to try
to surface student thinking and elicit
deep thought and try to understand the
30 plus complex individuals learning and
growing in front of us every period of
every school day while we may not be
able to uncover every part of each
complex story we can equip our students
with the tools necessary to tell their
own stories to explore their own thirst
for knowledge and celebrate their
individuality and complexities that lie
beneath the surface and finally to learn
and grow from any setback they run into
but again in order to be those educators
that can act as guides and empower our
students sometimes it requires taking
risks and getting out of the day-to-day
routine and rediscovering our own
passions and hunger for learning so what
does that actually look like translated
back to the classroom how do I take all
of those experiences in this deepened
knowledge of a discipline that I was
very new to in the beginning and bring
it back to my students in a way that’s
worthwhile to them and
again I knew I would be creating
deliverables and lesson plans and we
work through projects and delivered
talks and the exposure to the science
content was there but I’m not sure that
I identify in a specific point where the
entire audience in front of me or all of
the students I was working with felt the
same passion for these polar regions
that I have gained from this experience
so you get a little nervous that as an
educator you’re gifted with this amazing
experience and you need to use it to
give back but how does that work we’ve
had it that look and how do you make
sure you’re really truly using it in the
best way possible as an educator and I
realized over the course of the past two
years since that experience happened
through observing my students continue
to interact with IceBridge Keeney and
other scientists through working with my
students inside the classroom working
through labs not necessarily fuller
specific being in a position where I
could sit with my students and take the
risks in our learning processes together
was one of the biggest transformations
and I realized that the transformational
piece of a PD like polar track and other
programs that offer these opportunities
for educators is not necessarily
something that can be wrapped up in a
nice neat timely survey packaged in an
evaluation report with a hard deadline
for me the internal transformation as an
educator and as a human took time and it
allowed me to what to elicit in myself
what National Geographic refers to as
the Explorer mindset and this is the
development of the attitudes skills and
knowledge that align with that mission
from the National Geographic learning
framework you saw a few slides ago where
we want to empower our students to learn
about the world and to protect it
so what better way to empower our
students and to truly live this Explorer
mindset ourselves to get out there and
explore to check ourselves to make sure
that we are representing each of these
components of the Explorer mindset in
that way we can guide our students to
explore their own desire to learn about
our world they’re protected so if the
Arthur was the top of the world I also
have the opportunity recently to visit
close to the bottom as a National
Geographic when your teacher Fellow and
through that program I connected with
fellow educators and we are still
absorbing many of the experiences that
we collected during our 14 expedition we
traveled to the and reduc Peninsula we
observe hunting behaviour of Orca three
different species of penguins the sheer
size of icebergs that have capped off
the Antarctic ice shelf
passed us by in our kayaks and zodiacs
and all of these things are collected in
our experience toolkit and will be
manifested in time and our lessons and
in our interactions with students an
experience like this and an experience
like polar trip is something that has
the power to truly transform an impact
not only an individual educator but our
interactions with the students we
interact with every day allowing them to
see us take risks and see us jump into
something we’re excited about even if
we’re scared and don’t know much about
it it’s something that is powerful and
will be a transformation call me
in time so we are just three months out
from this particular experience and an
older wiser polar educator recognizes
that you might not see the true impact
and our students immediately but it will
happen and it’ll happen with our
colleagues and our co-worker in our
community in years to come so I realized
I kind of went to the extreme ends of
taking a risk and diving into or out of
my comfort zone to seek my passion so
I’m not asking the educators in the
audience to immediately find a way to
step outside of their classroom and
travel to the ends of the earth but I am
asking you to check yourself and make
sure that you’re still fulfilled in your
work and you’re still excited to learn
about your discipline and you can still
elicit your own passion take risks take
care of yourself in a way that allows
you to support your students doing the
same thing and so I’m going to end with
a few pieces of advice and this is
advice that I think you can resonate
with educators both formal and informal
and anyone that really has the capacity
to influence which is all of us I think
it’s important to seek out opportunities
that align with your passions even if
you don’t know a lot about it but you’re
interested in it find an opportunity
that already exists or try to create one
connect with people in your field don’t
be afraid to have the inevitable
failures that will happen sometimes
those end up being the best experiences
you might try to enter an opportunity
that you don’t succeed in right away but
the community will build along the way
is incredibly important allow yourself
to absorb every part of the experience
so really be a stylish permanent don’t
try to speed through and use every part
of the experience
there happens take your time allow the
transformation to happen
embrace the community that will
inevitably be built
embrace your deep and content knowledge
the best part is when you think you’re
an expert in something and then you
realize how much more you have yet to
learn embrace athletes not only in your
discipline if you’re in science or in
social studies and languages their
history or arts but also in terms of
global perspectives and finally be
honest with the fact that you’re on a
journey of learning and growth be honest
with your students allow you to hone
their ability to show through sit down
with them and let them know that you’re
not expert in everything take risks with
them and likewise listen to their
experiences that are outside of my realm
of expertise allow there to be a
conversation and learn from each other
sometimes we learn the most from our
students what we know now which does the
tip of the iceberg of what the world has
to offer so I’m encouraging all of us to just go explore
ha
flying 1500 feet above ground level
soaring between mountain peaks dotting
the coastline of southeastern Greenland
viewing and observing pressure ridges
built up from collisions of floating sea
ice over the North Pole these visions of
the High Arctic I’ve been feeling like
more like I would have fallen into a
fictional chalk beneath all Americans of
Burt rather than actually living such an
experience as our fearless pilots
maintain a steady speed low to the
ground a reference we’re flying 1500
feet above our surface your average
commercial airliner place close to
30,000 feet as they flew us I maintain
that steady speed we were viewing parts
of the planet that no human could ever
touch viewing a snapshot in time of the
icy north that will never again look the
way it looked in the instant that we
passed over I never thought that I would
have the chance to experience such
thrilling beauty beyond what’s available
in textbooks and online resources but
somehow here I was a teacher from go
down to Pennsylvania walking around with
an old p3 aircraft turned airborne
laboratory that comes in submarines in
the military hunter came to us for the
time was picky and in the springtime of
2016
those 16 priorities science missions in
the architect as I tried to absorb and
process the sheer beauty and extreme
beauty of some of the most sensitive
regions of our planet my mind was
spinning trying to figure out how I
could translate this experience to my
classroom I knew I would be creating
deliverables that align for the science
content of each mission and any way
would be providing outreach talks
lessons media interviews I’ve had even
translate the feelings the renewed
hunger for learning and intense
responsibility toward our earth and its
sustainability back to middle and high
school students at home that haven’t
been able to experience the same thing I
want to talk to you today about the
power of experience fulfillment as an
educator and how that fulfillment can
translate into our interactions with our
students they show us time and time
again don’t take that influence and run
with it if it resonates with them
they’re becoming our teachers our
leaders our world changers and in order
to best support them we need to make
sure that we’re fulfilled in our work
sometimes that comes down to finding the
right opportunities outside of the
classroom in professional development
opportunities perhaps or in adventures
that align with your passions one of the
greatest pieces of advice that I
received from some wise individual
during my undergraduate career was to
check yourself every two years in your
work every two years and make sure that
you’re happy and while you’re doing is
it’ll show and for me I came into
teaching along a non-traditional path
and at the two-year mark I was still
happy and I loved working with my
students and it passed over that five
year work and ventually it was a decade
schools along the way but I was nervous
about becoming unfulfilled Network
becoming from police and as an educator
perhaps not the best that could be for
my students not giving what I was
capable of giving to offer them support
while I didn’t want to leave the work I
was doing
I found a point where I felt like
something was missing
so I started seeking out opportunities
that aligned with my content but that
also provided an opportunity to build a
broader global perspective for myself
along the way and through lots of
falling on my face eventually I
discovered my love for polar regions and
realized I had a position to open up
this part of our world to every student
and colleague I come in contact with
every day maybe along the way
influencing some career direction or
uncovering some great ideas or hidden
passion in my students that would allow
them to affect change by work through an
almost desperate leave to explore I
found myself in a wonderfully lucky
position to participate in some
transformational professional
development that allowed me to
rediscover that fulfillment one of those
opportunities was called polar truck
polar truck as a program supported by
the National Science Foundation NASA and
NOAA that pairs k-12 educators with
polar research news allows the teachers
to integrate into a field campaign where
the teachers can connect with their
students from the fields and then create
materials to bring back to their
communities same coorporate polar
science education back home the
experience that I described in the
beginning was a glimpse into my polar
type experience based in Greenland
flying along with NASA’s operation
IceBridge the largest airborne survey of
Earth’s polar ice equipped with a suite
of remote sense
that allowed us to collect data on
priority nations and regions of CX on
May 3rd 2016 I fool my first science
light with the IceBridge team and as we
connected and shout of his students
virtually from our online class in the
air we dropped down to that 1,500 feet
and started collecting data along the
North Pole transects and in that
powerful moment I was taken not only by
the beauty of our planet these regions
of our birth that have been letting us
know about the threat of climate change
for decades but also by the sheer
technology that had literally kept all
of us safe as we flew over crevasse
fields and deep ice creams carved out by
meltwater on its way to the sea the
aircraft itself was a feat of
Engineering an integral part of the data
collection puzzle which helps us
understand our dynamic hopefully at a
little better each day so as I try to
absorb this wonderful amazing place I
realized there there was so much more
available to us than what we can see
with their eyes see we’re trying to
uncover the story that was held within
the X so our airplane was equipped with
light our radar infrared cameras
high-resolution digital mapping systems
and an expert team of scientists
engineers and flight
who could troubleshoot any technical
issues on the spot
they were the realized projection of
collaboration phenomena driven lesson
modules project-based learning
everything that we know is important to
include in our classrooms to engage
students in STEM disciplines was right
here in this incredible field of science
so important to us the airplane itself
was equipped with these remote sensing
tools that helped us uncover layer by
layer what was beneath the surface of
the ice where we were limited by the
abilities of our own senses light gave
us topographic maps of the ice that
we’re flying just a few feet above radar
gave us information about the thickness
of snow cover on sea ice and where the
layer of firm or compacted granules of
water on its way to being the lead
crystallized into glaciers began in
engine infrared cameras helped us find
leaves or long narrow openings and see
is revealing open water providing a
reference point for measuring freeboard
the height of sea ice above sea level
we flew flight lines that match
satellite tracks from the European Space
Agency’s cryo sac laser altimetry
instrument and we collected data that
bridged information from nasa’s icesat
one and which will be continued in the
very near future by nasa’s icesat tube
in every eight plus our mission that we
flew in our 30-day field campaign i
realized i had more questions than
the more I learned the more I needed and
wanted to know digging beneath the
surface in the story of the Arctic
became more complex and exhilarating
than I could have imagined
the goal was to uncover the stories that
were held within the ice that were very
beneath what’s visible to the human eye
and effect the things a little bit how
about how the work we are doing on this
airborne lab is similar to what most of
us do in our classrooms every day
using every tool in our toolbox to try
to surface student thinking and elicit
deep thought and try to understand the
30 plus complex individuals learning and
growing in front of us every period of
every school day while we may not be
able to uncover every part of each
complex story we can equip our students
with the tools necessary to tell their
own stories to explore their own thirst
for knowledge and celebrate their
individuality and complexities that lie
beneath the surface and finally to learn
and grow from any setback they run into
but again in order to be those educators
that can act as guides and empower our
students sometimes it requires taking
risks and getting out of the day-to-day
routine and rediscovering our own
passions and hunger for learning so what
does that actually look like translated
back to the classroom how do I take all
of those experiences in this deepened
knowledge of a discipline that I was
very new to in the beginning and bring
it back to my students in a way that’s
worthwhile to them and
again I knew I would be creating
deliverables and lesson plans and we
work through projects and delivered
talks and the exposure to the science
content was there but I’m not sure that
I identify in a specific point where the
entire audience in front of me or all of
the students I was working with felt the
same passion for these polar regions
that I have gained from this experience
so you get a little nervous that as an
educator you’re gifted with this amazing
experience and you need to use it to
give back but how does that work we’ve
had it that look and how do you make
sure you’re really truly using it in the
best way possible as an educator and I
realized over the course of the past two
years since that experience happened
through observing my students continue
to interact with IceBridge Keeney and
other scientists through working with my
students inside the classroom working
through labs not necessarily fuller
specific being in a position where I
could sit with my students and take the
risks in our learning processes together
was one of the biggest transformations
and I realized that the transformational
piece of a PD like polar track and other
programs that offer these opportunities
for educators is not necessarily
something that can be wrapped up in a
nice neat timely survey packaged in an
evaluation report with a hard deadline
for me the internal transformation as an
educator and as a human took time and it
allowed me to what to elicit in myself
what National Geographic refers to as
the Explorer mindset and this is the
development of the attitudes skills and
knowledge that align with that mission
from the National Geographic learning
framework you saw a few slides ago where
we want to empower our students to learn
about the world and to protect it
so what better way to empower our
students and to truly live this Explorer
mindset ourselves to get out there and
explore to check ourselves to make sure
that we are representing each of these
components of the Explorer mindset in
that way we can guide our students to
explore their own desire to learn about
our world they’re protected so if the
Arthur was the top of the world I also
have the opportunity recently to visit
close to the bottom as a National
Geographic when your teacher Fellow and
through that program I connected with
fellow educators and we are still
absorbing many of the experiences that
we collected during our 14 expedition we
traveled to the and reduc Peninsula we
observe hunting behaviour of Orca three
different species of penguins the sheer
size of icebergs that have capped off
the Antarctic ice shelf
passed us by in our kayaks and zodiacs
and all of these things are collected in
our experience toolkit and will be
manifested in time and our lessons and
in our interactions with students an
experience like this and an experience
like polar trip is something that has
the power to truly transform an impact
not only an individual educator but our
interactions with the students we
interact with every day allowing them to
see us take risks and see us jump into
something we’re excited about even if
we’re scared and don’t know much about
it it’s something that is powerful and
will be a transformation call me
in time so we are just three months out
from this particular experience and an
older wiser polar educator recognizes
that you might not see the true impact
and our students immediately but it will
happen and it’ll happen with our
colleagues and our co-worker in our
community in years to come so I realized
I kind of went to the extreme ends of
taking a risk and diving into or out of
my comfort zone to seek my passion so
I’m not asking the educators in the
audience to immediately find a way to
step outside of their classroom and
travel to the ends of the earth but I am
asking you to check yourself and make
sure that you’re still fulfilled in your
work and you’re still excited to learn
about your discipline and you can still
elicit your own passion take risks take
care of yourself in a way that allows
you to support your students doing the
same thing and so I’m going to end with
a few pieces of advice and this is
advice that I think you can resonate
with educators both formal and informal
and anyone that really has the capacity
to influence which is all of us I think
it’s important to seek out opportunities
that align with your passions even if
you don’t know a lot about it but you’re
interested in it find an opportunity
that already exists or try to create one
connect with people in your field don’t
be afraid to have the inevitable
failures that will happen sometimes
those end up being the best experiences
you might try to enter an opportunity
that you don’t succeed in right away but
the community will build along the way
is incredibly important allow yourself
to absorb every part of the experience
so really be a stylish permanent don’t
try to speed through and use every part
of the experience
there happens take your time allow the
transformation to happen
embrace the community that will
inevitably be built
embrace your deep and content knowledge
the best part is when you think you’re
an expert in something and then you
realize how much more you have yet to
learn embrace athletes not only in your
discipline if you’re in science or in
social studies and languages their
history or arts but also in terms of
global perspectives and finally be
honest with the fact that you’re on a
journey of learning and growth be honest
with your students allow you to hone
their ability to show through sit down
with them and let them know that you’re
not expert in everything take risks with
them and likewise listen to their
experiences that are outside of my realm
of expertise allow there to be a
conversation and learn from each other
sometimes we learn the most from our
students what we know now which does the
tip of the iceberg of what the world has
to offer so I’m encouraging all of us to just go explore
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