National Geographic Headquarters, Washington D.C.

I'm so excited to return to The Nueva School! This year, I am teaching 5th grade Earth & Environmental Science. Over the summer, I spent time preparing for remote learning, reading, hiking, and tide-pooling. I also helped test a class by National Geographic called Storytelling for Impact in Your Classroom: Photography. For my final project, I was challenged to go out and capture a sense of place at a specific location; you can view the project in this blog post. ​Staying close to home also gave me the chance to hone my backyard naturalist skills. You can read about that experience by reading this blog post. No matter the challenges it may bring, here's to an awesome year ahead.

5th Grade Sci-Art Projects

I am so proud to showcase student work that combined art and science. For the Green Screens project, students produced a mini-documentary about an environmental issue of their choice.  You'll be impressed  by the students' content knowledge and digital storytelling talents exhibited in the videos. 

Click to see more Green Screens documentaries!

​The Illustrated Climate Graph was another sci-art project; for that one, students analyzed climate data and incorporated the actual graph line into an original art piece. The technique was inspired by researcher/artist Jill Pelto's work. To accompany their art, students wrote an essay that described the specific impact of climate change depicted.

Click to see the Illustrated Graph Gallery!

On Expedition in the Galápagos Islands

To my delight, I was offered a chance to join a National Geographic/Lindblad Expeditions Galápagos expedition last year as a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow Alumna. It was a tremendous professional honor and an opportunity to explore a place that has long fascinated me. I observed blue-footed boobies, giant tortoises, marine iguanas and other iconic animals of the islands. On expedition, I gained firsthand knowledge of Galápagos wildlife and natural history as I followed in the footsteps of Charles Darwin. Read more about the voyage of discovery in this blog post.

With an endemic Galapagos Giant Tortoise

MiddleWeb Article on Women in STEM 

Read some of my thoughts on a new resource to help educators promote diversity in STEM fields and shift cultural perceptions of what science is and who can do it. The blog was inspired by Erin Twamley and Josh Sneiderman's latest book Everyday Superheroes: Women in STEM Careers. The book features 26 prominent women of color in STEM careers from A-Z (Astronomy to Zoology). Young readers will be amazed by the profiles of the superheroes and they will be challenged to develop their own STEM superpowers through embedded activities. Click here to read the blog, and click here to order a copy of Everyday Superheroes.

Science Scope Article on Plankton

I am so happy to have a featured article in Science Scope (January 2019, Oceans Issue) called "The Microscopic World of Plankton." Science Scope is the middle school journal of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). The article describes a series of activities for students to investigate plankton and better understand plankton's role in aquatic ecosystems. Students can engineer a plankton net out of household materials, observe plankton specimens with a microscope, and construct a visual model of an aquatic food web!
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Click here to read the article.
Click here for a Plankton Primer info sheet.
​Click here for the Plankton Activity Cards.