Bradley - Counting Down to Departure

I depart on my Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship expedition in just over 2 weeks. To say that I am excited is to dramatically understate the situation. Since the moment I learned that I had been selected as a 2023 Grosvenor Teacher Fellow (GTF for short), I have been making packing lists, reading lists, and lists of lists still to make. For over a month I have been making organized piles of gear around the house, only to shuffle the contents of those piles into other piles. I have been reading about Arctic exploration and wildlife, and low key obsessively checking the weather in places along the expedition route. 

I have also been drafting this post in my head for some time, but did not want to seem overeager. (I am so very overeager.)  What I want to do here is share a bit about the Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship, where I will be, what I will be doing, and how I hope this journey will impact my teaching and benefit my students.

Photo taken at National Geographic
Basecamp by Mark Thiessen

So what is the Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship?

The Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship was founded in 2006 in a partnership between the National Geographic Society and Lindblad Expeditions. The fellowship is open to K-12 educators from the USA, Washington, DC, Puerto Rico, Department of Defense schools, and Canada. Educators selected through a rigorous application process demonstrate a strong commitment to geographic education, the principles of National Geographic Explorer Mindset Learning Framework, and to helping their students become responsible stewards of the world's human and natural communities. The members of each cohort participate in a once in a lifetime field experience in some of the most remote locations on Earth where they will learn from National Geographic scientists, naturalists, photographers, and specialists return to their classrooms and turn the voyage into "new ways to teach students, engage colleagues, and bring new geographic awareness into their learning environments and communities". Fellows commit to a 2 year leadership role with National Geographic Education.

I am a member of the 15th cohort of Grosvenor Teacher Fellows and the first since the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic. There are 50 of us and in mid April we had the opportunity to meet at National Geographic's headquarters (known as "Basecamp") in Washington, D.C. It was an inspiring 2 days of training sessions and meetings to prepare us for our expeditions and for us to collaborate. It is an absolute honor to find myself included in this group of outstanding educators  You can read more about this education dream team in this press release and on the Nat Geo Education blog.

Where am I going?

Expedition begins in Oslo
and ends in Bergen. Map 
by Lindblad Expeditions.

On February 24, while riding in an Uber in Mexico City, my phone rang around 1:30 in the afternoon. Generally speaking I do not answer calls from unfamiliar numbers, but something told me to answer this one. That's how I learned that I had been selected as a 2023 Grosvenor Teacher Fellow and that I would be traveling to the the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and the fjords of Norway. I was sworn to secrecy regarding my selection and was only allowed to tell family, administrators, and close friends. Waiting to share with the wider community was incredibly difficult.

On July 11 I will fly to Oslo, Norway and meet with the rest of the expedition travelers on the 12th. The next day we will fly to Longyearbyen, Svalbard where we will board the National Geographic Endurance. Longyearbyen is named for an American coal mine owner and is home to the northernmost commercial airport in the world. Also, the word is that polar bears our number people. Svalbard's islands sit between about 76 and 80 degrees north latitude. At their most northerly they about 700 miles from the north pole, or less than the distance across Texas. We will spend several days exploring Svalbard before heading south to Bear Island, and beyond that, Tromso. From there we will work our way down Norway's coast exploring the fjords as far as Bergen where the journey ends. 

What Does This Look Like at School?

In the STEM lab I am constantly running up against have lots of things I want to do and not enough time to do them. By the time I was cleared to share my selection as a 2023 Grosvenor Teacher Fellow with the world, the last full rotation was underway. That means that the introductory lessons associated with my expedition were not experienced by all of the students. Unfortunate, but it is always like that.

I started by explaining my expedition and introducing the students to the places I would be traveling using Google Earth and maps from Lindblad. I showed them pictures of the ship and talked about what I would be doing. Many of the students are familiar with National Geographic from television shows and a surprising number asked if I was going to be on TV. First and second grade learned about Arctic animals and the adaptations that help them survive in a harsh environment. They then learned to make slotted paper models of those animals. On the last day of the unit they research an Arctic animal of their choice, made a fact card about it, and built a slotted paper model to go with it. (See some of the creations in the video below.) Meanwhile, 3rd and 4th grade got a more in depth look at my itinerary. They had a choice of researching a place on that itinerary or choosing an Arctic animal or place. Then they created a Scratch project to share what they learned from their research. 

The end of a school year is always a bit chaotic and classes are frequently missed for a variety of reasons. With that in mind, here are the Scratch project studios for 3rd grade and 4th grade's Arctic projects. Some are not entirely complete because of the interruptions inevitably suffered at the end of the year.

As for what this looks like when I return to school, I honestly cannot say. I am keeping an open mind and preparing for the inevitable inspirations that come from traveling to a remote corner of the globe. Whatever they may be, I am hoping to create lessons and projects that inspire my students, spark their curiosity, and empower them to act as responsible stewards of the natural and human communities of which they are a part, locally and globally. 

I am so excited to share this journey with you. Follow along on Instagram: @tortoise_finch and on Twitter: @bquentin3.