Spring Branch ISD Featured News

 

On Monday, don’t ask Spring Woods High teacher Jamie Flint or Stratford High 10^th-grader Jennifer Dias “How was your week?” They might need days to report exactly what they were doing this past week in a South American rainforest.

Flint is an award-winning science instructor who was also Spring Branch ISD’s 2012 Secondary Teacher of the Year. Dias, interested in chemistry, computer science and engineering, is active in Student Council, swim team diving and local Girl Scouts.

This week, they joined a team of entomologists, or bug scientists, and other students and teachers on a JASON Learning study and research expedition into the rainforest region of the Amazon in Peru.

 

 

In May, both Flint and Dias were named as Jason Argonauts by the JASON Learning organization, an independent nonprofit associated with National Geographic Society and the Sea Research Foundation.

“When I return home from my Argonaut experience,” said Stratford’s Dias, “I intend to share my knowledge with my community by talking about it with others and sharing my interests and experience, hopefully encouraging others to apply for this program or to participate in other programs which pertain to their interests.”

“What I learn on my Argonaut experience will travel with me as I advance through life,” she also said before her trip. 

 

 

The SBISD teacher and student began preparing for their Amazon trip soon after the new school year opened. They learned about the “Bug Chicks” in the field who study arthropods, or insects, and they began to learn more about the native stingless bees and sustainable agriculture practiced by the Maijuna, an indigenous people who live inside Peru’s rainforest region. 

 

Flint and Dias departed Oct. 13 for Lima, Peru. They will return on Sunday, Oct. 21. 

During this past week, they absorbed a variety of key activities – orientation, night astronomy boat rides, guided rainforest introduction and exploration hiking, insect studies with specimen trapping at different canopy and biodiversity levels, plus visits with the Maijuna community’s stingless bee keepers.

However, a live online Oct. 18 streaming discussion with Amazon-based educators and students, including Flint and Dias, failed due to technical issues.

Instead, Jason Learning has posted a question-and-answer style discussion with Randy “The Bug Man” Morgan, an entomologist and an Amazon Rainforest workshop teacher.

To view this discussion, click here.

Learn more at www.jason.org.