My next unbelievable stargazing experience was when I went to study wildlife conservation in Kenya for a semester in college. At night, all the electricity shut off, leaving complete darkness and the most brilliant sky. It is almost not quite right to call it complete darkness, because the sky was so bright with the stars. If the moon was full, there was no need for a flashlight.
You may be seeing a theme--I love animals and the night sky. During college, this was a slight problem for me, as I had to choose just one path to follow: astronomy or biology. Eventually, I chose biology, but I kept astronomy as a passion. I also realized that I could become a teacher and have the best of both worlds--I could teach all the science to my students, and in the summers, I could still work in conservation and go on expeditions!
I have worked in the field of education for over a decade. I have taught in classrooms, at the Bronx Zoo and Central Park Zoo as a conservation educator, and on international expeditions and programs with National Geographic Student Expeditions, Reach the World, The Explorers Club, and The School for Field Studies. I have taught in the rainforests and reefs of Australia and Belize, the glaciers and mountains of Iceland and Alaska, and the villages of Fiji and Botswana, just to name a few. Just about every culture I have encountered has a connection to and stories about the night sky.
In 2014, I was teaching first- through fourth-grade science at Avenues: The World School in New York City. I had the opportunity to go to a science teacher’s conference. I began speaking with the person sitting at a NASA booth.
