Last week was a really big week. So big, in fact, I have had trouble processing it all – guess that’s why this post is a few days late!
To start, TeamJaws took a trip to University of Florida in Gainesville to study shark jaws. As the trip coincided with Discovery Channel’s Shark Week programs, we felt #therealsharkweek was a fitting hashtag. Part of the research we are doing revolves around making well informed hypothesis about the length of the prehistoric sharks that swam where North Carolina is now. UF has an amazing collection of modern shark jaws that are intact and well documented. This documentation means that we know the fork length and total length of the sharks that the jaws came from. Our hope is that we (including our students) can make a connection between tooth size and body length – which will then aid our predictions for lengths of prehistoric sharks.
The staff at the Florida Program for Shark Research (part of the Florida Museum of Natural History) was extremely welcoming and helpful. We spent the three days practicing shark teeth data collection – about 1900 photos of individual teeth. After each day we retreated to a restaurant for some refueling and conversation.
Those conversations led to late night discussions on education reform (world takeover?). As a group, we continue to drift to the importance of this experience on Brittany, Chris, and I (as well as Bucky, but more on that later). Life-long educators have had little practice in the field we teach and this experience has given us the confidence to lead students down the paths of inquiry. What if we could give more teachers the experiences of field research and lab time? Is there a way for good teachers – the leaders in the field of education – to have regular, mentored, experiences in their fields of teaching? 
This really gets to the shared goals of all the members of our team. Bucky, as our team’s mentor, has seen the need for change in education first hand. He, like us, has been changed by the Students Discover program. In some ways, it is redefining his goals as a scientist and researcher as he moves forward. As we neared and passed midnight on Tuesday in Gainesville, I was struck by the weight of these conversations. While the other patrons of the restaurant were playing games and dancing, the servers were counting tips, and the clean-up crew was collecting dishes, we were discussing the possibility of a hybrid Teacher-Scientist-Mentor role that may one day be possible. A teacher that spent 50% of the year in the classroom, 25% in the field, and 25% mentoring other teachers. A role that could be arranged through the partnerships between museums, universities and local education agencies(LEAs) to get more teachers out in the fields of science, math, business, journalism, or the arts – and at the same time bring attention to those museums, universities, and LEAs.
But, we’ll need a few more late night sessions to plan that…