MILLSBORO—This summer, Millsboro Middle School science teacher Michael League will be 8,500 miles away from Delaware, talking with students from the endless night of an Antarctic winter.
The Millsboro Teacher of the Year will share his love of science with students from Delaware and across the country when he travels to Antarctica to conduct scientific research as part of PolarTREC: Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating.
- League works one-on-one with former Millsboro Middle School student Garrett Runne. (Photo courtesy of David Maull)
League, 29, was one of 12 teachers selected out of more than 200 from across the nation to participate in the project, funded by the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs.
The project, which began in 2007 and is funded through April 2014, engages teachers in polar research in order to improve their science content knowledge and understanding of scientific inquiry. League will add value to the mission by connecting researchers and students through webinars—online seminars—and conference calls from the field.
“I think that the webinars with students and researchers in real time is just phenomenal,” said Susan Fox, PolarTREC’s executive director. “It makes science real. Not abstract at all. It’s very immediate and very exciting.”
League will be spending his “winter-over,” as Antarctic researchers call their research season at the southern pole, with Adam Marsh, an associate professor of Marine Biosciences at the University of Delaware. Marsh’s team will study Capitella perarmata, a hardy marine worm that appears both in the Delaware Bay and in Antarctica, as well as around the world. Studying the species in the contrasting locations can give scientists clues as to how an organism adapts genetically to a range of environments, including extreme cold, Marsh said.
The UD biologist often gives presentations to teachers, but he says he doesn’t have time to go into subject matter in depth. He views League’s participation in the project as a real asset. “Michael’s ability to develop a K-12 outreach component is just fantastic,” Marsh said. “I’m enthusiastic about working with him again.”
- Under about 6 feet of ice in the frozen ocean of Antarctica, Millsboro science teacher Michael League uses a specimen bag to collect sea stars (starfish) for study in a 2005 project. (Photo courtesy of Adam Marsh)
The trip the summer will be League’s second voyage to Antarctica with Marsh. He went first as a UD graduate student in 2005. Now he will conduct research for Marsh and play an active role on the dive team while sharing information with students and educators through journals, videos, webinars, and conference calls.
League says the interaction engages students in science because they can see research happening in real time.
“My students were very excited,” he said of the 80 eighth-graders he teaches. “It’s much more about them than me. I want them to get excited about studying science—that’s what this is really about.”
Already League can see the excitement growing, and that has fueled changes in his teaching.
The PolarTREC project “allows me to be more connected with current research efforts and bring that to the students,” he said. “It’s important that they see that science is evolving and that they are a part of it.”
Even students who weren’t particularly interested in science have been caught up in the excitement, he said. And when students are interested, classroom discussion become lively, and more in-depth learning takes place.
“The best days are when they are engaged and motivated,” he said.
