Reflection: Nature as your teacher

It's really hard to capture what my Fund for Teachers Fellowship gave me both personally and professionally over the last 2 weeks.  Every day when I finished working alongside a researcher in the ocean or in the rainforest I felt like a child who had the best day ever and couldn't wait come home and tell mom and dad.   It relit my passion for science in a way I could not imagine.  

When you get to touch science and feel it from it's perspective, you understand connection.  While I was hiking 30 minutes into El Yunque to help do groundwater and debris collection for a canopy study my brain thought about all of the stimulation I was getting from nature.  As I learned plants and history along the way through Monique's team, it allowed me to be present and engulfed in the process.  Being present was a theme everyone talked about.  

Speaking with so many great team members from CIROM and their reef restoration efforts helped me remember to believe in myself when everything else is falling apart.  Every one of the team members had a unique story on failure.  I was the most intrigued to learn that culturally they are taught to fear the sea, the ocean is not a resource and the desire to study marine biology is not supported by family.  In order to do what they love, they went against everything that was thrown at them.  Imagine wanting to use your skills in conservation to protect your island and then being told you should be doing something that makes more money.  Manual said it best "don't ever do it for the money."  He told me that he may not be able to buy the most expensive home or car but every day at work brings me joy.  Manual beemed when I told him "I envy what you get to do every day.  You truly have a dream job. "  

As I return back to a classroom absent of rainforests and reefs, I am going to give my students a way to experience conservation and know they can make a difference anywhere in the world regardless of their past experiences, backgrounds or preconceived notions about science.  

The three themes I am taking with me are:

Science is family

Science is being present

Never stop paying your dues