Gossamer Naturalist

Tag: spiral learning model

  • Towards being a Science Teacher in 2022

    Towards being a Science Teacher in 2022

    I apologize that is has been so long. The past two weeks have been a time of going back and forth between the Twin Cities and the Northwoods, followed by a time of catching up with myself. While this has allowed much time for thinking and reflecting, it hasn’t left much for writing. I’m pretty okay with that, and I’m hoping that I may be able to devote more time to my writing self soon, as I have six whole things I would love to write. Not just yet though, because big life changes are happening.

    Within just a month or so I will be starting a position as a science teacher at an amazing charter school in an urban/suburban setting. I’ve always been opposed to seeing myself as a science teacher. When I am asked what I’m going to school for, what I will do to earn a living, I always answer “Environmental Education” which is sometime always met with (when talking to folks in the traditional education system), “Oh so you want to be a science teacher, good for you!” a response I am endlessly annoyed by and yet suddenly find myself in the position of being. All of a sudden I have to ask myself some questions. What is this whole Science or STE(A)M thing? And how do we practice teaching science while preparing students to honorably interact with the world around them?

    My class starts as students file in, expecting a video and a worksheet as they have done for the past couple years. They are surprised when we find ourselves in a circle, with the questions on the board being “What is Science” and “How do we practice science?” My objective in this class is to give my students the tools they need to notice the interactions within the world they live in, and document the phenomenon they sense everyday as interesting and noteworthy. Rather than discovering facts about the world around them, I want them to be able to see the world through the perspective of a geologist, chemist, or physicist. I want to take my students to the park nearby to do real science, through curiosity, observation, and an app called iNaturalist. I hope that I can show them how different types of scientists view the world, and ask them how they view the world in a similar or different way. I want them to question the western scientific method, and ask how science is to be best conducted in the 21st century. Most of all I want them to do four things.

    Notice the thing

    Get curious about the thing

    Document the thing

    Think about how the thing connects to other things.

    I honestly have no idea how similar or different this philosophy of teaching science is from any other teacher out there. I have no idea if it will work in practice. Maybe I’ll write about it. For now I focus on actually getting there first. And amongst it all I want to keep writing for anyone who would like to read. Mostly to hold myself accountable my next few subjects for this blog are: how place changes us, simplifying our expectations for a just world, challenge hikes, using gardens as a teaching tool, and maybe the conference I’m going to next week.

  • Place

    Place

    Place changes us fundamentally as people. People change as their place changes. Our habits, our emotions, our ways of knowing, all have roots in our biome and social geography. I’ve thrown myself into the waters of Gitchi Gumee each day for the past ten days, and those days have changed my mental space. More on this to come, hopefully on Wednesday. For now, enjoy your place….

    The Lake is whimsy…

  • Learning in Time & Place

    Today, now, yesterday, and tomorrow, I sit at my little corner, with my salt lamp, record player, a friends lovely plants, over looking Gitchi Gumee, now bluer than the sky itself. The narrows of Wolf Lake stretch out before me, the space between mountains three.

    It was through these narrows the other day that I lead a class of seventh graders, snowshoeing to the cedar grove where it all simply stands still. They were unimpressed. However, it wasn’t for that day that I sought to impress them in this place, nor for today about a week later. Maybe tomorrow it was for? The cedars and the chaga in the birches takes their time to work their way into our hearts, but inevitably they eventually do.

    Yesterday was a very different adventure. A walkabout alone, through the melting network of ski trails along the Baptism River. I could hear the rushing waters of the Spring melt in this day before the equinox, but could see down the hill stood on. Between myself and the Baptism, a forest of spruce and fir and endless wet and sharp snow. A less interesting venture than a jaunt up the hill, towards a section of birch and the possibility of early buds. There were none, but many grouse and mystery birds abound.

    Learning in place is learning by existing and questioning. Why does this birch bend differently from all the others? Who is making that mysterious call (it was a blue jay)? Will this sunflower seed pop like corn or wild rice (nope)? In the past few years I’ve struggled with finding my own way of asking questions. But yesterday, standing at the deep snowed trail beside the hidden Baptism, I realized that I was asking these questions all the time, but wasn’t taking the time to notice them. As I welcome the Spring equinox today, I create this intention for the next three months; To take the time to notice the questions I’ve been asking myself all along.

    Quacking Aspen buds how do you prepare for the warmth of the sun? Can I do the same?.
  • Stormfront between Selves

    Stormfront between Selves

    There is a dichotomy between filling my life and the lives of others with experiences, and trying to function in a the world of environmental education and justice in a capitalist world. The two simply dont mix. Today, I am confused and hurt, and still processing in walks with friends up mountains, and in observing the behavior of a nuthatch as it bounces between my head and its spruce tree home. There is so much more to say. But today I tire, and fall into dreams. Tomorrow is full of snowshoe adventures and planting peppers for the season of growing.  Hopefully my dreams are full of those peppers.

    Gitchi Gumee ways flowing between icy cliffs 
    and sandy islands. 
    Each story building upon what has been before like the sandstone which builds the south shore's cliffs. 
    And the water which tears them apart bit by bit 
    into caves and beauty. 
    The storms between storytelling and sap-flowing, 
    pushing between expansion and experience and back again. 
    Tearing me apart. 
    I cannot stand before the storm. 
    I can only take shelter in past selves and could have beens. 
    Empty selves shaped by the waves and silences. 
    Broken by a gift of chaga 
    from a child filled with wonder. 

    The universe is created by division. 
    The river splits in two, and the cells in my body divide 
    and give rise to story and stormfronts between selves. 
    And I dont know where the river flows next 
    What story there is to be told 
    between now and dust.