First Day of School
My first day of school normally starts with 150 nervous 7th graders inquiring what middle school math will look like and what they will be covering this year. I have taken a sabatical this year and I have to say that it has been very weird to not go through the steps of buying new school/teacher clothes, setting up my classroom, and mentally preparing myself for a brand new year. I am actually in the reverse roll, because I’m currently enrolled in Beam Reach: Marine Science and Sustainability School. I’m currently on beautiful San Juan Island and on the waters of the Salish Sea for the next 10 weeks. I’m so looking forward to new experiences and hope to explore the idea of a masters in Marine Biology. We were at Lime Kiln today doing an introductory activity and J,K,and L were just south of us. I will have to admit that I was not a very focused student, because my eyes were more in my binoculars than in my notebook. Smile! Please ask me questions about the classes I am taking and I would love to share in more detail. I’ll give you a quick overview of my schedule so you know when I’m here at the Friday Harbor Marine Labs. Call me or email me, I’m not that far away. So, for the next three weeks we will be here on land; formulating our research question and laying out the proposal for our project. Then we will go to sea for two weeks and try out our methodology, sampling protocols, and get familiar with our sustainable life at sea. We’ll follow this with one week back at the labs, analyzing our preliminary data and verifying that we are on track with our research project. Then we head out for three weeks at sea (eeee…I can’t tell you how excited I am for that). Finally, our last week will be on land. Looking over our data, analyzing it, and writing up our findings. Our presentations will be to a high stakes audience to reveal all that we had studied and learned. Well, I’m off to class for now. Enjoy the sunshine!
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