Oregon Trip

This will probably be the most informal of the posts that I've created thus far. So I've just returned from a meeting with the "Helmuth Lab Team"--we leave for Oregon on Friday morning. I am so excited about this incredible opportunity!

Before today, I must admit that global warming and climate change was a topic that I believed to be worth teaching. Yes, being "stewards of the Earth" is not written in the standards, but we can all appreciate how necessary it is. The problem is that I've never taken that approach. Correction--I've mentioned it to my students. We've even had a couple of (brief) discussions, but "living it" in front of their eyes is not something that I've done. I wouldn't call it neglect. Probably ignorance. Not really knowing or understanding how our Earth and every living thing that calls it home, is being impacted by a changing climate has been my primary reason for not really touching on it too much.

One of the objectives for the field research is for us to study the impact of climate change from an organism's perspective. Well...there are lots of different little ecosystems that we'll be studying, so there will be a variety of organisms that we'll come in contact with.
During our debriefing, there were several things that kind of went over my head (all the technical stuff/some of the terms). I feel like I need a whole course on climate change! I didn't really know what questions to ask. One thing became perfectly clear to me: Climate change is real and it will be really hard for me to ignore it, let alone (not) teach/discuss/acknowledge it with my daughter/students. In fact, I'd be negligent NOT to do so. I know that I will learn so much from this experience alone.

I look forward to (what I'm sure will be) this life-changing experience.