I feel incredibly honored to have been selected as a 2016 National Geographic/Lindblad Expeditions Grosvenor Teacher Fellow. This is an opportunity I’ve been hoping for ever since I learned about it four years ago from a Lindblad naturalist. This year, I join a fantastic cohort of 35 fellow K-12 teachers from the U.S. and Canada to participate in this one-of-a-kind hands-on professional development. Grosvenor Fellow Teachers Marcella Ovalle, Amy Rothschild, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have been part of a 17-day expedition to the Svalbard archipelago of Norway, Greenland, and Iceland this summer.

Teaching children about this beautiful part of the world is enormously important to me–and a source of great joy. When children learn about its wonders (its animals, the ice, the amazing flowers, lichens, and mosses that grow here), they will surely be moved to protect them. Going to eastern Greenland and meeting the native children of Ittoqqortoormiit, a small Inuit village, brought home to me the enormous complexities of climate change (and colonization). I hope that by sharing my  experience with my community at The Park School of Baltimore– and beyond– that we will all be motivated to make positive changes, small and large, in our daily lives. Together, perhaps we will figure out ways to reduce the impact we humans have on our environment.

This blog is meant to give readers a taste of my amazing journey to the Arctic.