Teacher Brings Adventures to the Classroom

  • Fourth-grade teacher Robin Frisch-Gleason on a research trip to Antarctica (Photo courtesy of Robin Frisch-Gleason)

Kids can watch all kinds of TV shows, movies,
and DVDs about science and nature. But it’s not the
same as talking to a researcher who’s actually been
to remote places in the world. Kyle Norris reports
when that researcher is your fourth-grade teacher it
makes everything very real:

Transcript

Kids can watch all kinds of TV shows, movies,
and DVDs about science and nature. But it’s not the
same as talking to a researcher who’s actually been
to remote places in the world. Kyle Norris reports
when that researcher is your fourth-grade teacher it
makes everything very real:

Okay, so guess where we are.

“Good morning, Slausson School. Good morning.”

It’s a school assembly.

So the woman talking is Robin Frisch-Gleason. She’s a fourth grade teacher. And before
that she was a geologist. And she loves polar regions. She says she loves their vastness
and their emptiness.

A couple months ago she went to Antarctica to study the rocks. And to learn more about
how to teach kids about polar regions.

Now that’s she’s back, she does stuff like this assembly, and tells kids about her trip.
This is her explaining how geologists drill the ice and then pull-up core samples of rock.

“I explain it by saying think about putting a straw in milkshake. You put a straw down.
The very top of the milkshake is the top of the seafloor. And then you press down, maybe
to bottom of cup, and when you cover the straw with your finger and pull it back up, you
have a core of milkshake. And that’s just like we take up a core of rock.”

She says the rocks are like a book, and they tell a story about the past. The scientists in
Antarctica are actually reading the rocks. And they’re trying to find out if the ice melted
when the climate got warmer in the past. So that they can predict what will happen to the
ice as the climate continues to warm in the future.

Robin Frisch-Gleason wants to kids to know that polar regions are vulnerable to climate change.

“And they should be aware of it, and as they grow up it should influence their decisions, their
voting, their career choices, and their own personal behaviors.”

But ultimately she wants to make learning fun. And like alive. Back in her fourth-grade
classroom, the kids do a lot of hands-on activities.

(clapping)

Like imitating the way penguins communicate through penguin calls. But in this case, by
clapping their hands in a certain pattern, and trying to find other kids who have their
same pattern.

In another activity, they wear different types of insulated gloves – like a glove lined with
cotton, or a glove lined with fat – and they stick it into icy water, to see which is warmer.

“It’s fun to stick your hand in things. It’s hands-on like he said, it’s fun doing hands-on
stuff, it’s fun trying out different things. And it’s fun because you’re really trying to
experiment on stuff. You’re experimenting with science and it’s really fun at the same
time.”

Plus the kids say that it’s cool having a teacher go to Antarctica and come back and teach
everybody all these cool things. They say it’s even given them some street-cred amongst other kids at
other schools.

Here’s 4th grader Cole Magoon:

“And it’s kind of like have a famous person be your teacher.”

The kids say that doing fun, hands-on activities actually makes them want to pay more
attention. And this kind of learning not only sparks their critical thinking and problem-
solving skills, but it’s also a great way to get kids psyched about science and math. And
learning from a person who’s actually been in the field seems to amplify all this.

And it gets kids thinking about the world they live in, and the world they’ll have to take
care of.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

Artist Teaches Kids Environmental Awareness

  • Gijsbert van Frankenhuysen helps kids not only appreciate art, but nature as well. (Photo by Chris McCarus)

A children’s book illustrator is taking his art to schools around the region. Through his illustrations, he’s teaching students about respecting the environment. But they also get excited about learning in general. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:

Transcript

A children’s book illustrator is taking his art to schools
around the region. Through his illustrations, he’s teaching students
about respecting the environment. But they also get excited about
learning in general. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus
reports:


30 children are sitting on the floor with sketch pads in their elementary school classroom. They’re watching artist Gijsbert van Frankenhuysen. He’s standing at an easel, drawing animal shapes.


(Sound of magic marker)


“So we’re gonna make an oval shape right here, with 2 ears on it. And then you can color it black and you give him 4 short black legs. Make sure you make em black. That’s what they have. Look at that. One sheep.”


The children look up at the easel, then back down at their sketch pads, then up at the easel again. They’re comparing drawings to see whose come closest to the artist’s drawing, and they want Van Frankenhuysen to show them how to add body parts to the sheep.


“What do you want me to show?”


“Tails!”


“Hooves!”


Van Frankenhuysen has spent the whole day at this school.


(Sound of applause)


He gets this kind of response everywhere he goes, and he visits about a hundred schools a year. This student, Emily has just seen, step by step, how the artist turned blank pages into the beginnings of a book. He’s already illustrated childrens favorites like Adopted by an Owl, the Legend of Sleeping Bear and 16 other books.


Child: “I learned about aminals.”


McCarus: “What about them?”


Child: “That they’re cool to make.”


McCarus: “Do you ever see any of the animals out in nature outside?”


Child: “I see horses and cows and owls at night. And I hear ’em by my house.”


(Sound of sheep)


Back at his home on a farm in central Michigan, Van Frankenhuysen’s wife Robin walks through the barnyard past the sheep and horse the artist uses for painting. She roams the property trying to call him in to the house for dinner.


(Sound of whistling)


But he doesn’t hear her. Since they bought this farm 25 years ago they planted thousands of trees and made 3 ponds. There are lots of places to hide. But it’s not like the couple is trying to get away from people and be alone in nature. They’re happy putting them into one big mix.


It wasn’t until a couple days later that we finally caught up with van Frankenhuysen. He doesn’t miss the chance to show kids the wonders of nature. He says learning about it can make classroom lessons easy.


“I have boys, young boys, that normally don’t do any journaling, because they thing it’s for girls. And then they see what I do. And I write down the stuff that happens on the land. If I find a birdnest, I make a drawing of it, I put it in my book, I write it in. A deer, a fox, anything that I see. And now those stories are kind of turning in to books that we sell. And I’ve had several kids that now they’re doing it. And I don’t know if in the back of their mind, they’re thinking maybe I can make a book out of this when I grow up. It doesn’t matter! They’re paying attention. They’re writing this stuff down. I think it’s all good stuff.”


Many states are cutting education budgets. Often art is the first program to go. But state education association spokeswoman Margaret Trimer-Hartley says parents demand art. Learning it creates interest in science, literature and even math. She says van Frankenhuysen makes children better students overall. He supplements what regular teachers might not be able to provide.


“His work has given all of us an appreciation for nature and the flora and the fauna around us. Now his lessons can give us all a greater appreciation for the issues of conservation and protection of that environment.”


The warm, playful illustrations in his books touch both children and parents. In person, van Frankenhuysen is just as disarming. He’s modest when he explains why he goes into classrooms to teach kids to draw year after year.


“It’s the only thing I know how to do. I don’t know anything else. It’s painting. It’s fun.”


It really isn’t the only thing he knows how to do. His drawings are just the beginning. The trick he’s mastered is to get kids to start thinking about themselves and their environment.


For the GLRC, I’m Chris McCarus.