Online Faculty & Student Journal
With a bit of technological wizardry we have moved our blog to our very own WWW.TETONSCIENCE.ORG
Please update your bookmarks and check our new address regularily for the most recent postings about our graduate program, wildlife sightings, podcasts (coming late April, 2007), classes, bird of the day, visiting school groups, and much more from the amazing Grand Teton National Park and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
How do we know if the values we want to impart as environmental educators are reaching our students? How do we want to live and manifest our values in our daily lives? What are we actually doing everyday that is in line with our values, and why or how do we justify if they don’t line up? Heck, what are our values and how do we clearly articulate them? These are a few of the questions I thought about as guest speaker, Teton County Commissioner, Benn Ellis, joined the graduate class in an evening discussion about “Action” last night. Benn shared some of his amazing ideas and experiences, but predominately facilitated this fascinating discussion with our faculty and staff. It’s a pretty daunting subject area. Needless to say, we didn’t come to any final conclusions on values or how we measure the impact that our work has on our students. But, it was valuable to have that time to hear the varied responses of our classmates and to peronally reflect on our own ideas.
Throughout this program, I have been so enamored by all the skills and knowledge that I am learning that I have not taken as much time as I’d like to examine the bigger picture of why am I here and how doing Environmental Education/Natural History Interpretation fits into my value system. It’s easy for me to get caught up in the homework assignments, teaching practicums, weekend activities, and lose sight of the importance of examining my motivations, beliefs, values, etc. Sure, I love the environment, I find value in humans taking care of each other and our planet, but why? That’s the question that I’ve thought about for years when deciding to pursue this field of study. I have come up with many answers and the answers continue to change as my experiences change. I know that taking the time to articulate those ideas is important to my personal development and my development as an educator. It was nice to have that reflection and discussion time scheduled into our Planning and Seminar Week. From the infamous words of my instructor Kevin, ”I invite you” to take a few minutes for yourself and think about some of the questions that I took away from last night’s discussion and how they apply to you.
I don’t fancy myself a particularly coordinated person. In fact, walking on the snowy paths around campus I frequently find myself tripping and have even body planted in the snow a time or two. Needless to say, I was a little apprehensive about trying climbing at the new rock gym. But, how could I pass up the opportunity to learn from some of my knowledgeable classmates?
So, last Friday Kate and I headed to the climbing gym where she wowed me with her amazing patience and instructional skills. That girl is TALENTED and I’m not even talking about her actual climbing skills (which are also incredible!). She taught me how to put on a harness, how to belay, climbing lingo, and various climbing techniques. Three hours later, we were joined by Jess W. Jay, John, and Dave. This group is so supportive and fun to learn how to climb with. Kate and Dave are beautiful to watch climb and they are such great teachers. Jay is always cheering everyone on and Jess W. talks me through my mind blocks on the wall.
I am so excited to have my classmates as climbing buddies. This group of graduate students has such a diverse body of knowledge and I’m glad that I’m getting the opportunity to experience their unique skills outside of the classroom!
Half of the graduate class started our academic rotation in “Instructional Strategies” with John Haskin and Kevin Haspela last week. The previous two weeks I was teaching for my Outreach practicum in
Pinedale, WY and Lander, WY. During those two weeks my team (composed of Anne, Megan, Heather T., Heather J, myself, our fearless leader Robin, who busted her knee, and Rob, who unexpectedly took Robin’s place) went into various public schools and gave classroom teachers ideas on incorporating Place Based Education into their curriculum. It was amazing to work with such a diverse teaching team and learn from all those classroom teachers that are out there working with our youth everyday. It is such an honorable job to influence and shape the way our future beings are going to think about and view the world. I’m not sure I could be a full time classroom teacher, but I have the utmost respect for the work they do and learned so much from all of my cooperating teachers!
Another great aspect of Outreach was having the opportunity to travel and experience other parts of
Wyoming. It is easy to overlook the rest of
Wyoming outside of the surrounding
Jackson, WY area where we build quite a tight knit community during this year. We taught on an Indian Reservation, in ranching communities, in communities affected by oil and gas development, and communities with a strong emphasis on outdoor recreation opportunities. What a rich assortment of classroom teachers, students, and school districts for our team to interact with!
However, after two weeks of teaching it is nice to transition to academic classes. We truly have the luxury of learning from some really knowledgeable and talented faculty. These past two weeks we got to see John Haskin in his element. He has such a gift for working with students. The passion he possesses for education is evident in the way he interacts with us, encourages us, teaches us, and challenges us to think.
In class this week, we have been interviewing 5th graders and High School students who attended residential education programs at our campus. We split into groups and asked the students about their memories from their 5th grade fall trip. Tomorrow we present our findings to the class. I can’t wait to hear the various results; what the students remembered, how my classmates interpreted their data, how we can use the insights gained from our research to make our teaching even better. I have a feeling it’s going to be a day full of thought provoking conversations. I can’t wait! I’ll let you know how it goes.
Big news is circulating since last Friday’s announcement that Jackson Hole is slowly becoming, well, less of a hole. A seventeen year study using global positioning system satellites to measure the slightest movement of the land found the valley rose 1.7 inches. I was concerned about becoming an alarmist, but this could have implications for the Teton Science Schools. What if the valley rose so high the Tetons completely disappeared? Should we be entering into strategic organizational planning to prepare for a loss-of-namesake contingency plan?
My rusty math skills quickly quieted my racing heart. All other rational geologic thought and processes aside, it would take 843,373.5 years for the valley floor to rise up and meet the highest of the teton peaks. It amazes me that the crust of the earth- something I know to be extremely hard and un-moving from personal experiences such as being reacquainted with it while skiing at Snowking or attempting to dig a hole in the cobble ridden sage flats- can be so incredibly plastic. There is a force at work here, though, that surpasses the strength of even the unruliest cowboys left in Jackson Hole, the Yellowstone Hotspot.
Unfortunately for the 20 somethings of the valley, this is not the latest National Park concessionaire run discotheque. This is a supervolcano that has carved a path all they way from Washington, Oregon, and California across Nevada and Idaho and eventually into the northwest corner of Wyoming. It now rests underneath the United States’ first National Park, Yellowstone, and provides us with such spectacles as Old Faithful, Grand Prismatic Springs, and ancient columnar basaltic flows.
After all my musings, I decided I better get outside and make sure all was still visibly right with the valley. I summitted Shadow Mountain, which lies just opposite the Teton Range on the Gros Ventre side of the valley, with Jaime and our cross-country skis. We surveyed the scene and decided that from 1,500 feet above the valley and 58,000 feet from the peak of the Grand it was hard to tell anything was happening. However, even though it is just out of sight in the picture below, the astute observer will realize when gazing at the Teton Range that it abruptly ends to the north and tapers to nothing. The range that once continued well beyond where you can see from here once succumbed to the Yellowstone Hotspot.
