Q: What sparked your passion for science?

A: I had a wonderful middle-school science teacher who really encouraged my curiosity. I was one of those kids who always asked so many questions; I'm sure I drove him crazy. And I give a lot of credit to my mom, who encouraged me to learn more and taught me about the natural world as I grew up.

Q: Were you interested in geography early on?

A: I’ve always been a map person—into globes and that kind of thing—and throughout my teaching, I find it's essential to help kids connect with where they live and how it affects everyone else around them. Whether it’s in your community, state, or country, we’re all in this together. We’re connected.

Q: Which Google tools have you been working with?

A: I’ve used Google Classroom exclusively with my kids. It's wonderful to share documents and presentations, and give questions for the students to think about. And of course, to give assignments and let students have access to it – a paperless copy. It’s really seamless.

Q: Have these tools transformed how students learn and collaborate in the classroom?

A: Yes, absolutely. I had my students do an engineering project that incorporated measuring, and they took pictures of the designing and building throughout the process. They worked together in groups of three or four, and collaboratively created one presentation. Each of them contributed something, which is really nice, and I could see the revision history, and who did what and when.

When we learned about glaciers, the students used Google Earth, and chose four of the glaciers in Glacier National Park. They zoomed in, found the glaciers, dropped a pin, screenshot them, and placed them in a Google Doc. They discussed the glaciers and the patterns they had seen, and really got to see the geology of that area.

Collaboration is an important 21st-century skill: being able to listen to the ideas and perspectives of others, and not to judge, but to listen with an open mind and work things out. That's a huge a skill I see the kids getting better and better at.

With these digital tools, you can generate more questions for the students, and a desire to explore. I think it gives them aspirations to travel and learn about new places--to think differently, more globally. It gives them a whole new perspective.