As an educator being educated, I am in my favorite element – experiencing life as a learner. My highest hope and mission as a teacher is to help each of my students Learn to Love to Learn! Through my Kenan Fellowship I am documenting my personal commitment to lifelong learning, and as most who will read this blog know and understand, modeling behavior is much more effective than being a sage on the stage.
My excitement about the eMammal Project can not easily be expressed in words, but I am confident that my passion will shine through to my students, as I share with them my adventures and hope for their futures as Citizen Scientists. My fellowship has provided a behind-the-scenes view of how regular people can help scientists in their research. Each of us can contribute to the knowledge-bank of the world! How cool is that?!?
As a co-creator of curriculum, I hope to provide other educators and learners with resources to assist in the exploration and understanding of our world. The eMammal Team will be working together to create interdisciplinary lesson plans, videos, data resources, and field guides to make citizen science as accessible as possible.
As an advocator for education, of any and all forms, I will share my experiences as a Kenan Fellow far and wide, in hopes of instilling the importance of knowledge, in and of itself. One of the most influential discussions that was held this week, surrounded the question of “how do researchers justify funding?” We have learned about so many intriguing projects in the Earth Observation & Biodiversity Lab at the Museum of Natural Sciences, but few have a direct impact on HUMANS, as a species. Our group expressed concern that, especially in the current political environment, it must be difficult to obtain government funding. Dr. Stephanie Schuttler, our postdoc mentor, explained that sometimes we need to advocate for our right to learn for the sake of learning, even if it doesn’t have a direct impact on people. Gotta love that #fancyscientist!
Please join us on our quest to find more Citizen Scientists!
THIS is what a Scientist Looks Like!
Thanks for the t-shirts Rob Dunn
http://robdunnlab.com/projects/students-discover/