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Ohio's public schools serve 1.6 million children - 90 percent of students in the state! What happens in the classroom has impacts far beyond the walls of the K-12 school building or higher ed lecture hall. So, on behalf of the 120,000 members of the Ohio Education Association, we're taking a deeper dive into some of the many education issues facing our students, educators, and communities. Originally launched in 2021 as Education Matters, Public Education Matters is your source for insightful conversations with the people who shape the education landscape in Ohio. Have a topic you'd like to hear about on Public Education Matters? Email us at educationmatters@ohea.org
Various student voices 0:08
Public education matters. Public education matters. Public education matters.
Jeff Wensing 0:15
This is Public Education Matters brought to you by the Ohio Education Association.
Katie Olmsted 0:26
Thanks for joining us for Public Education Matters. I'm your host, Katie Olmsted, and I'm part of the communications team for the Ohio Education Association and the nearly 120,000 public school educators OEA represents around the state. These educators are dedicated to delivering the best education possible for their students, and often that means becoming students again themselves. That's what our guests on today's podcast did with a once in a lifetime learning experience that they will use to enhance their students' learning experiences for years to come. They are both middle school science teachers who share a passion for bringing the real world into their classrooms for their students, and over the summer, they ventured far out into the real world with a 10 day fellowship in Iceland, funded by a big grant from the Fund for Teachers, in partnership with the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation, they also shared a technology grant from OEA for equipment they used on their trip and back in their classrooms now. We sat down with them to talk about how they're using what they saw and did in Iceland to help their students learn and grow back home. And if you pick up a small note of jealousy in my voice during this conversation, please know it is very, very real. I am insanely jealous. Let's take a listen.
Amy Boros 1:56
Hi. I'm Amy Boros. I teach sixth grade science with Perrysburg schools at Hall Prairie Intermediate School in Perrysburg, Ohio.
Shari Insley 2:05
Hi, I'm Shari Insley, and I teach seventh and eighth grade science at North Olmsted Middle School in North Olmsted, Ohio.
Katie Olmsted 2:13
And over the summer, you were not in North Olmsted or in Perrysburg, you were in Iceland. Why?
Amy Boros 2:21
We got to spend 10 amazing days in Iceland. We saw the entire country in 10 days, six hotels, long van rides,
Shari Insley 2:31
Very long. This is Sherry. And I think part of it was me. I was switching from fifth grade science up to eighth grade, and it was to help me get a great understanding of the earth and climate science that Amy already has being a veteran teacher, and just to kind of give me real world learning experiences there, and just to kind of help students bridge some of those gaps in the classroom. So partially, I don't want to say selfish, but just to give me that visual experience, and then also just to take so much back to our classrooms.
Katie Olmsted 3:09
So how did this all come about?
Amy Boros 3:13
So this is Amy. Five years ago. I received a grant from Fund f, u, n, d for Teachers for $10,000 to travel to Costa Rica to study their conservation efforts in Costa Rica, and that experience was so transformative for me as a teacher and the way I approach topics at school and bridging my understanding of foreign countries and the way they handle environmental topics that I felt like Shari need to experience something also. Shari and I met 2019 I believe, was that we're on the boat. We met on an Environmental Protection Agency research ship called the Lake Guardian, and we really connected there. Realized that we share a philosophy in how we teach students about science and incorporating the real world. And so Shari and I were sitting at a science conference, and I said, we have to do this. We have to apply for another grant. Let's do it. And we initially were going to go to Greece, and then there was some literally planning lost in translation, and we lost our spot in Greece, literally lost in translation, and we quickly switched gears and decided to focus on Iceland and geography, rocks, minerals, soils, climate change. And actually it became a much better experience for us, and it made the grant much easier to write, because even though I have been teaching rocks and soil and minerals for a very long time, there was still more to learn. And as Shari mentioned, it was time for her to get on board with the basalt. And the volcanic rocks.
Katie Olmsted 5:03
And there's no shortage of that in Iceland, but, but you mentioned Iceland's an even better fit than Greece for this. What? What specifically about Iceland made that such an important opportunity?
Shari Insley 5:16
So I feel like there were so many things. I think the most memorable was the day we were leaving the volcano erupted. So you know, we're our bus driver, casually mentioned, and out the left side of the window you'll see our latest volcanic eruption. So that was pretty interesting that you don't get to see that in Ohio, worried we weren't able to leave. We thought we were going to get stuck a little bit longer. So I feel like that was huge. Another really cool thing, Amy and I struggled with going to bed, because it's the 24 hour sun. So every evening, it just felt like it was still nine o'clock, nine o'clock, nine o'clock. And we just, we, you know, looking at our watch like, oh my gosh, it's 1230 we need to go to bed. So this idea of, you know, just the sunlight and this, I don't want to say eternal sunset, but every evening, it just was gorgeous. With the purples and the oranges in the sky, it was just beautiful. And then, of course, like Amy mentioned, the big joke of the trip was, oh, that's basalt Shari, because I'm not a rock person. I'm a water girl. I love water and won the presidential award for my water project, so I needed to see rocks firsthand and kind of get a visual history of all of these different rocks.
Katie Olmsted 6:33
So how does what you saw in Iceland translate to what your students will get in the classroom from you?
Amy Boros 6:41
This is Amy. When I traveled the first time to Costa Rica, I realized how important stories are in the classroom, and personal, firsthand storytelling with students about my adventures really helped the students connect to the content. So I haven't gotten to this topic yet, but I'm hoping, when I get there next month, that the connections for me saying this is me standing on volcanic sand beach, this is me standing on an iceberg, or not an iceberg, but a glacier, that you know, that they'll be like, Oh, this stuff exists outside of textbooks. And somebody we were with, we were standing on a beach and looking at this kind of rock formation out in the ocean, and she goes, Oh my gosh, that exact picture is in my textbook. So we quickly, you know, took her photo so that she can take that back to her students and be like, I was actually standing next to this very thing that is featured in your textbook. So it just gives you that connection to really take make science alive. Obviously, students can't go to Iceland with us, but we can bring back what we experienced there. Shari, do you feel the same?
Shari Insley 7:59
I do. I was going to say it was nice to be able to bring back samples in our suitcases. So the a couple, you know, chunks of the volcanic rock that you know had not the most recent eruption, obviously, because that was still molten lava a little too fresh. A little too fresh, is correct, wouldn't have made the truck in the airplane, but just different samples from all the different beaches that we went to, and just how diverse we could not believe how diverse Iceland was with, you know, one of the stops, it felt like we were on the surface of Mars with all the geothermal pools of energy and, you know, just kind of very red. It almost felt New Mexico. We, you know, Red Rock and just the red soil, so truly awesome that you have all of these physical things to bring back to students. And then again, the pictures that we were able to take and, you know, share with students to go. No, look, I was in this picture. I was really there, like Amy said, standing on a glacier. They really exist. And again, that story piece just all of the amazing history and just ties to the Vikings that the you know, my students being in middle school, you know what the ancient civilizations were like, that is so cool. Just to kind of share some of those stories.
Katie Olmsted 9:18
Now you've both mentioned the pictures. I understand you got a technology grant from OEA to help get those pictures. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Amy Boros 9:28
Yeah, so the OEA Grant was twofold. We used some of the technology to help us in Iceland take good photos and take videos. We got GoPros and digital cameras, still cameras, so obviously they helped us out there to get good footage. But we've also brought those pieces of technology back into our our classrooms, and our students are now using the GoPros, and our students are now using those digital cameras at my school, and I think Shari's the kids have what's called a Chromebook. So, basically it's a computer that just accesses the internet. They're horrible to take photos on. They're horrible to take videos on. It's just it's nearly impossible. They don't have a rear facing camera. And so Shari and I were talking that, okay, let this is like two fold. We could use it, but then where students can really dig in with this technology as well. Obviously, we used it in Iceland too, but using it back with our kids has been even better than we could have imagined. I have a two acre native prairie on my school grounds that was put in with a grant from the Toledo zoo and the EPA. So in our prairie, I asked the kids as their kind of final culminating project in our ecology unit is to showcase our prairie either from the bird's eye view or an ant view. So they use the digital cameras that to kind of get the bird's eye view and to snap pretty pictures of flowers and insects that they saw out there. But then the GoPros came in hand as they were using the ants eye view and really got down onto the ground, they had to talk about some trees that we have out there. And one of these kids just did, I'm a little ant, climbing up the tree, and he took his GoPro just straight up the tree, you know, like, just like an ant. Well, they're sixth graders, so they're still, you know, cutesy about all of this, but the science that came out was just as rich, because they had the right tools to get out there and, you know, showcase their understanding in a new format. So I'm really appreciative to the OEA grant committee for taking a chance on us and funding some unique equipment that really has gotten into the hands of kids at two different levels. My level was storytelling. Shari's level is more scientific inquiry and scientific research. So, so we split the grant. Half went to my school and half went to her school with the GoPros and the still cameras.
Katie Olmsted 11:57
Grant funding also was really important in getting you to Iceland. You mentioned the Fund for Teachers, grant funding for Costa Rica. Is that the same grant that got you to Iceland this time?
Amy Boros 12:07
Yeah, Shari, you can talk about that.
Shari Insley 12:10
Yes, so the Fund for Teachers, since we're in Ohio, the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation is who sponsored us to go, which was truly the trip of a lifetime. And I think I was in shock. I was on spring break when I got the email, Missy and Amy, and just beyond thrilled, like this is I never thought in a million years I'm a girl from Ohio, you know, Midwest, there's no way I'm going to Iceland, and we got it. So that was really exciting that I feel in in in a time when, sadly, teachers don't feel valued. It's nice to know that we do have support, and people do you know care a lot about us and just furthering our professional development in a truly intense, meaningful way for us as educators. So that was pretty amazing. And then, as Amy was mentioning the grant through OEA again in the classroom. It's so fun to use cameras with kids, because it was really neat for the kids to go around the very start of the school year being eighth grade rocks. It's like the story of our life. It was nice to go down to the Cleveland Metroparks and have kids take pictures of the different pieces of rock that they were able to see, so limestone and shale and different things. So the kids were able to take pictures and just kind of compare it to what I was able to see there in Iceland.
Katie Olmsted 13:35
Just talking to you, I hear how excited you are about what you're teaching did going to Iceland invigorate you and add to that excitement?
Amy Boros 13:47
This is Amy, yes. I think my friends, family and colleagues are very tired of hearing about Iceland, very tired about seeing my pictures. My profile picture on social media is me standing by a waterfall in Iceland in July in a hat and gloves and winter coat. You know, they're just really tired of it, but I look at myself, and I know Shari does too, as lifelong learners, and when we were there, we were students, we were fortunate to have a local guide from Iceland with us the entire time, and we naively thought everyone would speak beautiful English. We encountered a lot of Icelandic language, written and spoken. So it was nice to have someone with us who could help us through that and to help us through cultural things in Iceland. So there actually was a whole lot of cultural culture in Iceland, one of which is food. We were at a restaurant that had served things kind of family style, and all the labels were in Icelandic, and we ate what we thought was swedish meatballs, and turned out to be reindeer.
Katie Olmsted 15:03
Cool.
Amy Boros 15:03
So then it just sparked a whole conversation of eating things we hadn't expected to eat, and a lot of food and so being a lifelong learner, yeah, interesting. It was kind of gamey, okay, but I think we were too disturbed by what we were eating. But yeah, the enthusiasm just, I mean, we were there in July, and we're still giddy about it, still happy to talk about it, still sharing with our students, you know, and and just little clips will come up as we're teaching and talking. Oh yeah, well, when I was in Iceland, so yes, the enthusiasm, for sure, is hanging on.
Shari Insley 15:46
I was scared to teach eighth grade, like, really scared, because I haven't taught eighth grade science. I taught eighth grade math, you know, about 15 years ago. So again, it just gave me the confidence, and again, just connecting with these amazing educators like Amy and again, just experience it firsthand. It's something that I don't have to read it out of a textbook, because I got to experience it and got to see it, and then, like you said, just share it on a daily basis with my students. Is wonderful. And it's, it's something I get to talk about all year. So, like, Amy is tired of, you know, having other people, you know, hear stories. My students are like, Okay, we're ready for the next story. We're ready. They're eager and excited to come. And I love that.
Amy Boros 16:29
And it gives credibility, I believe, to us as science teachers, right? We're not just regurgitating what's in a textbook or what can be found on the internet. We've lived it. We met with we talked with scientists from, where were they from Finland, who were studying those geothermal pots that Shari was talking about, and comparing what they were finding to what the Mars rover is finding. So we had in depth conversations with scientists working in the field that then gives LEDs credibility to us, as well as educators, right? And so I think kids are eager to learn from someone. They think, who knows what they're talking about.
Katie Olmsted 17:07
And Amy, you mentioned that actually a little earlier, that that you've sort of you and Shari share a philosophy about your students and about the importance of bringing the real world in. I don't think it gets any realer than bringing Iceland to Ohio.
Amy Boros 17:23
Right, right. Shari and I both do a really good job, I guess, of connecting our students with experts in the field. I have worked a long time with NASA, worked a long time with globe, which is NASA's citizen science project, and then connecting students with professors at local universities and environmental scientists. And I know Shari does the same with her water projects, just connecting students to scientists in the real world and showing them that even though they're sixth grade or seventh and eighth grade, that they can contribute to real science.
Shari Insley 18:02
Actually, this is Shari. We just got the hydro lab. It's partly from the USEPA, and then the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant. And that's one of the incredible things that I think is so great to put in the hands of students, is real technology, so they can get real time data and look at our water quality for seventh grade, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity, so I had my eighth graders come outside and look at the surface of the earth. We looked at the rocks and things, but it's just like Amy said, it's just wonderful. And then I try to partner with our Sewer District, the Northeast Ohio regional Sewer District, to bring in the experts on the macro invertebrates, so to help us identify all the bugs and critters living there. And then sometimes the Cleveland Metroparks naturalists get a chance to come in. So again, it's wonderful to give students just real life connections, real life people who deal with or work with these things on a daily basis, you know, thinking about careers. And you know, what kind of college would that take, or education, you know, to go there, but just to look at the real world and get outside of our beautiful four walls that we get to see every day, and just again, connect it to the real world.
Katie Olmsted 19:09
And I'm gonna guess you have other hopes for more real world exploration. Any other plans in the works, any other things that you have on the horizon?
Amy Boros 19:18
Actually, yes, we're also looking at Shari's got some big ones.
Shari Insley 19:23
Yeah, Amy went to Yellowstone National Park a few years ago, and that's a place again, as a science teacher, that it's always been on my bucket list, you know, to go. So this summer, there's a group of educators from Ohio that will be trekking out there. So if anybody is interested, there's still spots in our group, and I haven't experienced it, but Amy sold it so well that I think there's seven or eight of us that are, you know, willing to truck out there for a week and work with the scientists out there in the National Park, and then hopefully the park rangers will be there as well to study the bison and then the wolves out there.
Katie Olmsted 20:00
I'm incredibly jealous, and I want to come too.
Shari Insley 20:04
Please sign up.
Katie Olmsted 20:04
Amy, any plans for you?
Amy Boros 20:08
None, but something always seems to pop up. So, you know, two summers ago, I did Teacher Air Camp down in Dayton, and I learned how to fly a plane. Learned how to take apart drones and build drones and fly drones. And Ohio is so full of experiences for teachers right here for free. So again, that is Teacher Air Camp, and I think those applications come out soon, but that's a free experience for teachers as well, to add on to your aerospace knowledge.
Katie Olmsted 20:40
So it really sounds like one of the big things everyone can be doing is just keeping an eye out for those opportunities and dig into the grant funding that's available and talk to each other about what they can be doing. Because it sounds like there are so many incredible things that educators can be doing to bring back to their kids.
Amy Boros 20:58
Yes, and it just took one experience for that to launch lifelong learning for me, and that was that EPA research vessel. It's called the Lake Guardian. And I took a chance. I applied with a friend. He did not get it, and I went by myself. And I was nervous about doing it by myself and spending a week on a research vessel in the middle of Lake Erie, where I didn't know anyone, but I met Shari. We we met over we bonded over boots, steel toed boots, actually, because we both had small feet, so we were stuck wearing these white steel toed boots. So you just have to take that chance. And yes, the applications take some time and some research, but in the end, the payoff for those grants and applications is worth it. The Fund for Teachers we probably spent, it's going to scare people off, but I'd say probably 50 hours of collaboration, researching and writing to put together that grant. It is extensive, but they gave us $10,000 and we traveled to Iceland with very little out of pocket expense. So, and then they celebrated us when we came back and wanted to hear all about it. And so, yeah, you just got to put yourself out there and take a chance.
Katie Olmsted 22:13
Well, thank you both for taking that chance, for bringing this to your students, and for sharing your perspective with us.
Amy Boros 22:20
Thank you.
Shari Insley 22:21
Thanks for having us.
Katie Olmsted 22:25
That does it for this episode of Public Education Matters, there are tons of links in the show notes for this one, information about that Yellowstone trip Shari mentioned lots of good photos from their trip to Iceland, and information about the OEA technology grant, among other things. Speaking of grants, make sure you join us for next week's episode when we talk to OEA secretary treasurer, Rob McFee about OEA's local affiliate grants and why your local association really could benefit from this opportunity. New episodes drop every Thursday as we continue our conversations with the people shaping Ohio's public education landscape every day because in Ohio, public education matters.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai