PolarTREC with Piper Bartlett-Browne

Description

This summer, Piper Bartlett-Browne, a science teacher at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Dover, traveled to the Arctic to conduct long-term climate change research aboard the U.S. Coast Guard vessel Healy. Now she’s back, ready to discuss her experience and bring hands-on, real-world science to her classroom! Piper was accepted this spring into the PolarTREC Program, a National Science Foundation funded program which invites just 12 teachers each year from the United States to partner with polar scientists and go on 3-6 week expeditions in the Arctic or Antarctic. In addition to Bartlett-Browne’s teaching, she also serves on the Teacher Advisory Council at the New England Aquarium and runs a science internship program for high school students in collaboration with the University of New Hampshire. Piper has also personally participated in research through the RETE Program where she worked on The Living Bridge Project looking at the effects of pollutants and potential environmental impacts on local watersheds. Piper’s teaching philosophy is to encourage students to engage in hands-on activities that generate data to investigate the application of academic concepts to real-world scenarios. She seeks to connect her students directly with the scientific community in order to foster enthusiasm and awareness, thus encouraging them to see themselves as genuine contributors to science. Piper has a passion for the outdoors, and living in New Hampshire gives her the opportunity to hike and ski. She enjoys traveling and exploring the underwater world through scuba. Piper is excited to have had this opportunity and to bring her experience back to her students.