Last week I had the pleasure of returning to a mountain top where a not-so-little piece of my heart remains. It has been more than two years since I taught at UA Science: Sky School, a program I had piloted as a UA/NASA Space Grant Fellow starting in 2012-2014. I was amazed that despite the way the team and the current instructors have grown and improved the programs, it felt so much like going home. I loved sharing photos from my new research in Antarctica and helping students transform their cell phones into microscopes while they waited for their turn at the telescope.
This was the sixth annual trip for Flowing Wells High School, the first school to attend Sky School’s flagship four-day outdoor research experience, in which students stay in dorms at the observatory and are advised on team research projects by graduate students. The students from this Title I school are supported on their Sky School trip by a Superintendant who raises the money to fund their trip from his Rotary Club, and by teachers who organize and chaperone the four-day trip.
And these students really deserve the support. The research on geology, hydrology, and biology in the national forest that they presented at the symposium the closing night of the program was impressive. They hiked for miles over thousands of feet of elevation change and learned new math and engineering skills to collect their data and design their equipment.
As the Arizona teachers wait at the capitol for a vote on a budget deal today, I hope the Governor and the Arizona Legislature understand just how much these teachers give up to support their students, but moreover, how much these students deserve more funding for infrastructure, supplies, and other pieces that make education work. I hope they find a way to raise and sustain the funding to make education not just less embarrassingly underfunded in Arizona, but a priority – not only when a walkout forces their hand, but on their own in the future.
Biologist. Explorer. Storyteller. 