We have lots of great teachers in Alberta—perhaps more per capita than any other place in Canada.
Last year 20 Alberta teachers received national teaching excellence awards.
This year, a pair of Alberta teachers are among only four Canadians selected for the National Geographic Society’s (NGS) prestigious Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship.
According to the NGS website, “The Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship is a professional development opportunity for current pre-K–12 classroom teachers and informal educators from and based in the 50 U.S. states, Canada, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Department of Defense Activity schools.”
In total, 35 educators were chosen for the fellowship.
Two Adventures
Next fall, both teachers will join exciting overseas educational expeditions.
One will go to the tropics, the other to the frozen far south.
Samantha Ur, a teacher at Morinville’s Four Winds Public School, will be heading to Costa Rica for a weeklong voyage from the Panama Canal to San Jose. Along the way, she’ll be boating, snorkelling, and hiking.
Sounds rough!
Tyler Dixon, who teaches physical education at West Ridge School in southwest Calgary, will spend two weeks in Antarctica.
Thats epic!
Both expedition ships will have expert naturalists on board with them.
Competition for the NGS fellowship was fierce.
However, after a strict application and selection process, Dixon and Ur recently learned they had made the cut.
“It doesn’t feel real yet; I know what’s happening, but it hasn’t set in,” said Dixon in a CBC story.
The two-year Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship is a joint initiative by Lindblad Expeditions and the National Geographic Society.
The Southern Pole
This November, Dixon embarks on a two-week expedition to Antarctica aboard a National Geographic ship called the Resolution.
After crossing the Drake Passage from Argentina to the Antarctic Peninsula, the team will explore the coastline and land by Zodiac, sea kayaking, hiking and cross-country skiing.
For a lifelong outdoor enthusiast like Dixon, who has 17 years of teaching experience, the Antarctic adventure is a dream come true.
“Being able to learn from experts in the field and then having an opportunity to bring it back and share that with the next generation of learners and the people that are going to be taking care of this place in the future, it’s pretty special,” Dixon told the CBC.
The Calgary middle school teacher is a Global Environmental and Outdoor Education Council member. He believes that his past experiences in nature-based teaching helped him in the application process.
Costa Rica and Panama
Samantha Ur, a Grade 5 and 6 science and outdoor education teacher, will travel to Costa Rica and Panama from December 14 to 21 aboard the National Geographic expedition ship Quest.
After two unsuccessful applications to the Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship program, Ur applied again last December, completing a rigorous process that included essays and video questions.
She learned she had been accepted in February, an announcement that brought her to tears.
“When I found out, I was ecstatic. I started crying. I kept saying, ‘I can’t believe this,’” Ur recalled, describing the moment she received the news via voicemail in her truck after school.
“It’s honestly a dream come true. This program is just amazing, and I’m so incredibly excited to be part of it. I still can’t believe it’s happening. I’m just so over the moon about it.”
She is particularly excited about the chance to work closely with National Geographic’s experts.
“On this trip, there’s going to be a lot of opportunity to get hands-on with a lot of field-based knowledge. They have naturalists on board, so I’m going to be able to go and learn from these naturalists on the ship,” she explained.
Pre-trip Planning
Dixon and Ur have already travelled to Washington, D.C., for pre-expedition workshops.
They also had a chance to meet the 33 other teachers from across Canada and the U.S. who had been selected for the fellowship.
According to the National Geographic Society, participants “transfer their onboard experience into transformative ways to teach students, engage colleagues, and bring new geographic awareness into their learning environments and communities.”
This year’s intake is the 16th cohort of educators selected for the fellowship.
The two teachers will have fellowship duties for two years of “goal setting, outreach and classroom action plans, media and data collection, ongoing surveys, outreach presentation(s), and outreach documentation.”
Congratulations to Dixon and Ur, and we can’t wait to learn more about their adventures this fall.
