Welcome!
I am so excited to embark on a journey studying life with you all! This course will examine living systems, from local and global ecosystems to the microscopic world of cells and molecules. More importantly, we will learn to use the skills, attitudes, and mindsets of scientists to deepen our connection to the natural world and to solve problems surrounding our own health, and that of our human and ecological communities.
2nd Semester Project - How does Cancer affect People?
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Essential Questions:
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Right around winter break in 2021, I got a call from my dad, and sensed before I even answered that there was more gravity to it than a typical check-in. He had been diagnosed with colon cancer. My stomach turned and I wondered with a mix of emotion and detachment how our lifelong connection would change in the coming months. Now, eight months later, after surgery and several rounds of chemotherapy, things are looking good and I am resting easy knowing that we've got a lot more life to share.
My dad's story connects my family to millions of others affected by cancer. While its impacts can be devastating on individuals and families, the treatments that saved my dad's life speak to the amazing power that science has to work in service of our health when applied properly. In this project, we will use cancer as a vessel through which to explore the role of science in serving our own health. There will be lots of content to learn if we are to answer this guiding question; we will need to model the structure and function of cells, nucleic acids, proteins, DNA replication, genetics and the cell cycle to understand how cancer works. We will also use all of the scientific skills to explore how cancer is identified and treated. This project will culminate in a mock oncology clinic where students must identify different types of cancer. |
About Me
I am thrilled to be joining the Animas High School community this year. I have long admired the culture and mission of the school, and I am grateful to be working in a project-based setting that values real-world experience and student voice. Though I am new to AHS, there's a good chance you've already seen me, either while bike commuting around town, or while at work in my previous job with Durango Nature Studies and the San Juan Mountains Association where I designed and ran nature-based field trips and summer camps for students from Kindergarten through high school (including AHS students, on a few occasions). My passion for teaching Biology stems from a lifelong love of nature that started when I was a young child poking around the coastal tide pools and lake shores of Maine and New Hampshire. Some amazing teachers in elementary school, high school, and especially during my four years as an Environmental Studies major at Colby College (Maine) deepened that love of nature by enriching my knowledge of it and empowering me to learn more through scientific inquiry. However, I have learned the most by sharing that love with others through teaching. Nowadays, I love to backcountry ski, mountain bike, scramble peaks, and run trails in the San Juan Mountains, but my happiest place is deep in the Weminuche Wilderness, with my backpack, setting up camp at a remote alpine lake to look for water bugs, birds, bats and animal homes, admire the wildflowers, sunrises and sunsets sunsets, and gaze at the stars and moon deep into the night.
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Who Belongs on the Land?
(Fall 2022) Essential Questions:
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In 2020, Colorado voters grappled with a question on their ballots asking whether wolves should be released onto public lands to restore the presence of a top predator that had been absent since the early 1900s. By a narrow vote, the answer was "yes." The contentiousness of the issue raised a question: who belongs on the land, and who gets to decide? Wolves had been extirpated from the Southern Rockies 100 years earlier by settlers looking to protect their livestock. But case studies from other places (notably Yellowstone) suggest that the reintroduction of wolves and other top predators are extraordinarily helpful to the health of ecosystems and the wildlife they support. We will use the issue of predator reintroduction to deepen the function of ecosystems as interconnected units. We will explore biology concepts of adaptation, speciation, coevolution, ecological niche, community interactions, disturbance, succession, ecosystem services and resilience to better understand what it means to "belong." Finally, we will practice using the eight science practices to inform decisions about how to manage land and wildlife.
The project will culminate in the creation of educational resources on the importance of threatened wildlife in the greater San Juan ecosystem. The questions raised in this project will tie directly to the Spring Humanities project focusing on Indigenous culture and history in the Four Corners region |
