Join Dr. Diane on the Adventures in Learning podcast as she delves into the extraordinary world of STEAMing Into Iceland with early childhood and elementary education STEAM specialist Katherine Mohr! 🌋🇮🇸 Immerse yourself in the magic of early childhood education, where curiosity meets creativity! From inside the volcano to the mesmerizing landscapes of Iceland, Katherine shares practical ideas about how she took her travel experiences to create in-depth and engaging STEAM centers into the classroom. Katherine shares practical tips for incorporating science, technology, engineering, arts, and music seamlessly into early childhood and elementary education!
To access the QR code with lessons, go to the YouTube video of this podcast episode.
You can also find the QR code on the show notes page at www.drdianeadventures.com.
Read the full show notes, visit the website, and check out my on-demand virtual course. Continue the adventure at LinkedIn or Instagram.
*Disclosure: I am a Bookshop.org. affiliate.
Join Dr. Diane on the Adventures in Learning podcast as she delves into the extraordinary world of STEAMing Into Iceland with early childhood and elementary education STEAM specialist Katherine Mohr! 🌋🇮🇸 Immerse yourself in the magic of early childhood education, where curiosity meets creativity! From inside the volcano to the mesmerizing landscapes of Iceland, Katherine shares practical ideas about how she took her travel experiences to create in-depth and engaging STEAM centers into the classroom. Katherine shares practical tips for incorporating science, technology, engineering, arts, and music seamlessly into early childhood and elementary education!
To access the QR code with lessons, go to the YouTube video of this podcast episode.
You can also find the QR code on the show notes page at www.drdianeadventures.com.
Read the full show notes, visit the website, and check out my on-demand virtual course. Continue the adventure at LinkedIn or Instagram.
*Disclosure: I am a Bookshop.org. affiliate.
[00:01] Dr Diane: Wonder, curiosity, connection. Where will your adventures take you? I'm Dr. Diane, and thank you for joining me on today's Episode of Adventures in Learning. So welcome to the Adventures in Learning podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Diane. And today we get to go back to the Amazing science and Iceland trip I got to do. Earlier this summer, Steve Spangler took a bunch of educators over to Iceland. We learned so much, everything from going inside a volcano to walking behind waterfalls. We learned about geothermal energy. And one of my fellow educators, Katherine Mohr, who is a specials teacher at St. Stephen's Episcopal Day School in Coconut Grove, Florida, she's an incredible teacher, and she has figured out how to take an immersive experience like that and turn it into something absolutely special for early childhood. So I'm very excited to welcome Katherine to the show today. You all are in for a treat. Welcome.
[01:11] Katherine: Hi.
[01:12] Dr Diane: So, Katherine, before we start with the real goodies in this program, I wanted to have you do a little bit of introduction. You're a specials teacher, and usually early childhood doesn't have specials. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are today?
[01:32] Katherine: Sure. So I am the preschool STEAM and music teacher at my school. I started out here as a science teacher for preK through second grade. And then a couple of years ago, they came to me. They called me in the office, which I was really nervous about at first. I was like, why are they calling me in the office? But it was a great thing. They said, we want you to focus on preschool, and we want to give you this opportunity to not only teach science, but also engineering, technology, all the things that encompass the hands on learning that we do in early childhood, but also to teach music. My background is in opera and musical theater. I have a bachelor's and a master's degree as well in singing and in classical music. So I was super excited to also be a music teacher as well in the school setting. I also love to travel. So as Diane said, I got to go on this amazing trip this past summer, which I will go anywhere if you invite me. So if anyone wants to take me to somewhere fancy, I will carry your luggage. And I also love animals, so we got to learn so much about animals in Iceland as well that I'm really excited to talk about with you today.
[02:58] Dr Diane: Wonderful. And I know from working in early childhood myself that you're in, like, the most perfect job ever. Because preschoolers are natural scientists. They're so curious and they want to learn. So how did you take this immersive experience and translate what you did into something that they were able to take and do on the preschool level.
[03:25] Katherine: So you're absolutely right. They love science. I'm so excited that I get to teach this subject, especially in this age group, because they are happy to see me and they're excited to know what kind of experiments and things we're going to do that day. So what I do whenever I create lessons is I always start with a circle time. We always introduce the lessons. We bring in some literature. We bring in some videos. My favorite videos to go to are Brainpop Jr., Scishow Kids, things like that. And I like to ask open ended questions. I have some books with me today that I brought from Iceland, so I did buy some. I also have some on my Amazon list that I want to bring in as well. I always start lessons that way, just like a homeroom teacher would start in circle time, I start in circle time, and then I break out into centers. Now, we follow the Florida early learning standards here. So I pull from those to teach about life science, earth science, space science, physical science, environmental science, and then your engineering and your technology. And all my music standards come from those, the Florida early learning standards. So I use those as my base, and then I pull in what I think would be fabulous for a little three or four or five year old to learn about that. So I incorporate my fine and gross motor skills, your dramatic play, the literacy centers, sensory, all sorts of these things. And I make centers that are specific to those standards that I'm teaching. And the centers that I will share with you today, they don't have to be things that happen once and then you're done, and then the next class you're doing something else, or you don't even have to have multiple ones of these centers going on. You can have a main center that's a little bit more hands on and then other things going on around the room that they can go to. And so, but that's what I do. I center everything around centers and all these preschool learning goals that we have, as well as the science standards that I teach with the Florida early learning, and then we close out the lesson altogether.
[05:47] Dr Diane: Well, and I love the way that you've integrated everything. You've connected it across the different strands, and there's definitely that playful learning vibe that comes through very clearly in your philosophy as you're setting this up as well. And so I was hoping maybe we can start with the books you've got and then work our way through some of the different centers what were some of your favorite books and why did you pick those?
[06:11] Katherine: Okay, so there were so many books to choose from and my luggage wasn't big enough to bring them all back, so I didn't get everything that I have. Okay, so found this one that I'm excited about. It's called Icelandic Weather, which is really interesting because being in Miami, it's mostly hot and the coldest days that we get are maybe sixty s. And they don't know what that's like unless they've been somewhere up north. So it's good to explore seasons. To teach seasons down here is very difficult because we have a wet and a dry season. We don't have the four seasons like everywhere else in the country does. So it's really interesting for them to experience it. I'm excited to bring this one in. Another one. This is more for Christmas, but we also learn about Christmas traditions around the world. And this is one we haven't done yet. So this is called The Yule Cat and it talks about how, and we learned this when we were in Iceland, how there are twelve Santa Claus's and their mother is a troll. And how cool would that to be to learn something different from another culture and bring that in for Christmas and do activities on that. I also have some books that are from my friends. I have a friend who's from Iceland and she gave me these music books and they're all songs, children's songs in Icelandic. So I'm learning how to pronounce them and I'm going to be teaching them in my music class as well. It has the notation and it has the words in Icelandic and they can learn how to pronounce them and what the songs are about.
[07:49] Dr Diane: Sounds good. So talk us through sort of how you set up your Icelandic STEAM unit. Share some of your favorite aspects from it.
[08:00] Katherine: So I like to think about when I create centers, what are my standards and what are my goals for that day. So I've broken up this unit into a ton of different sections. One of them is landforms, another is environmental awareness. Then I have animals and plants, weathers and seasons, engineering, food, culture and music and dramatic play. And then from there I thought about, okay, well, what are some of the goals and standards that we need to teach inside of these that I can also bring in to teach the preschool learning goals as well? How can I get them working on their fine and gross motor skills and still also learn and do something fun and dramatic play? Or how can I bring in a sensory aspect but still teach them about all these landforms. So I have a few that I would love to share with you if I can share my screen. Oh, I forgot. Also to mention that I mentioned that I like to bring in videos. I also have a lot of my videos that I plan on sharing with my students from my own trip, because when I told them that I went inside a volcano, they were like, how did you get out?
[09:24] Dr Diane: So, Katherine, I know you and I both loved the Inside the Volcano experience. You created videos for your class on them. I created a whole podcast inside the volcano, because Steve Spangler basically dared me to do it. And I know you've got some really cool activities that center around inside the volcano. Can you share how you structured those experiences so that if other teachers wanted to adapt them, they could?
[09:52] Katherine: Yes. So one of my favorite parts about going in the volcano was getting inside the volcano, and what we had to do was go on a lift system that took us down, four minute ride into the volcano. And I thought it would be really cool for the students to design their own pulley system. We would use the design process so they would draw their own system, and then they would build it. And you can use different materials. These are just my idea of materials. I love Kiva planks — they’re one of my favorite. They can use popsicle sticks, string wheels. They can even test out their design with a LEGO person if they want. And I would, of course, preface this with a video of me going down in the volcano and showing them what that lift would look like. So I would love to show you a little bit of that, if that's okay. Let me go to this video, and I'm going to skip ahead because it's towards the end. We had the worst weather that day, too, which this is windy and clear. Yes, it was such a windy, cold day. So here we are going up the volcano. Not a lot of handrails, but it was still great. And then we go to the top, and this is what we see going in. This is the elevator. So I would show them. We're walking over top of the cavern right now. And then we have this four minute ride. They hook us in down to the bottom, and then here's another view of it coming down, another group coming down showing them. And I just think that is such a cool experience, not only being inside the volcano, but how we got there. And that's such a great problem solving activity, too, for them to do.
[11:49] Dr Diane: Absolutely. And to be able to see it. I mean, this is literally the only volcano in the world that you can actually go into, which is just amazing.
[11:59] Katherine: Yeah, it was very cool.
[12:02] Dr Diane: And I love the activIties. I love the fact that you're using things that any early childhood center might have around for your challenge and that you have confidence in these three, four, and five year olds, that they can take on that kind of a challenge, that they can work together and they can figure out how to do the problem solving. To use some basic, simple machines to move something from the top to the bottom. That's really cool.
[12:31] Katherine: Yes. And it might be a trial and error situation. And that's something that I always tell them, too, if it doesn't work the first time, is that okay? Yes, of course. Because that's how we make things better and we redesign things well.
[12:45] Dr Diane: And that's one of the cool things about STEAM and little kids is you could literally leave this out as a challenge for weeks and let them come up with new iterations, let them figure out how to collaborate, how to share the materials they're going to be doing, that critical thinking and problem solving that we want them to do.
[13:04] Katherine: Right.
[13:06] Dr Diane: So what are some of the other wonderful things that you came up with?
[13:11] Katherine: Oh, gosh, there's so many that I would love to show you that we're not going to get to today. Oh, I love this one. So I'm going to show you some pictures. Let me share my screen for a second. We got to see some amazing animals on this trip.
[13:31] Dr Diane: Puffins.
[13:32] Katherine: I know. I love them so much. Gosh, I love the puffins. But I actually loved the Icelandic horses more only because we had such an immersive experience with them. One of our hotels, the backyard was full of these horses, so every night we got to go out and pet them and interact with them, and it was just lovely. But then we also had this amazing horse show that we got to see. And the cool thing about Icelandic horses, besides their size and the fact that they don't import any horses into Iceland, so they're completely purebred, is that they have five gaits instead of four, like every other horse does. So I thought it would be really fun to show the students the Icelandic horses and their gaits. Show them the video of the gaits that I have. And then also as a dramatic play, but also a great gross motor skill, take them outside and have them imitate those gaits and put on a horse show or even a race if you wanted to. And it would be super fun to see if they can imitate those gaits, the cantor, the pace, all of them. So that's one of my favorite. I can't wait to try this one out because I have especially some very active preschool students who are just eager to get outside and try this.
[14:57] Dr Diane: This was one of my favorite activities you had come up with because I thought, what a wonderful blending of gross motor, of that love of animals, of actually having to use executive function because they're going to have to really have some working memory because you're going to show them the gaits and they're going to be imitating them. There's some inhibitory control because they are being asked to do a very specific gait at a time. And then there's also some cognitive flexibility because you're giving them a totally different way of looking at and trying something out by using their bodies. I thought that was a home run.
[15:35] Katherine: Thank you. I'm excited. I can't wait to try this out. By the way, I haven't done any of these centers yet. We're probably not going to get to this unit until January or February. So I'm still in the process of tweaking this, and I can't wait to see how it's done and we take this on because then it's going to be a whole other presentation that I'm going to have and reflection for myself and for the other teachers. So that's going to be great.
[16:01] Dr Diane: Well, and as I'm looking at some of the things you've got, they're very much geared towards early childhood. But I'm realizing, too, that there's this flexibility where you could easily scale it up for older children, and it would lend itself beautifully for elementary school as well. You could do the gaits and you could actually have them measure how far each gait takes them if you wanted to add that component in. So there's some very cool stuff. And talk a little bit about the puffins and penguins, too, because I know in early childhood we deal with animals all the time because that's an easy access to their minds and imaginations to get them to learn about different animals. But it also circles back around in terms of life science through elementary school and beyond as well. So I thought you had some really innovative ways to have them think about puffins and penguins. And we know that puffins live in the Arctic and penguins live in the Antarctic. At least I hope we know that. But something that they're learning. So how do we set that?
[17:11] Katherine: And so I thought about this, too, because we always have these units where we create something where there's colder weather that's just like a theme, especially at least here in Miami, maybe because we want to go to the colder weather. So thought, you know, there's an idea that I got from Tony Vincent. I don't know if you're familiar with Tony, but he's fabulous, and he has all these wonderful, innovative ideas that you can slowly reveal pictures to students and see if they can guess what animal is which. And puffins and penguins have similar features. Right. They're both black and white. They both have a similar beak. They have similar, like their Arctic and the Antarctic look similar. So even the surrounding areas. So it's a game. You can also do with this with pixelation. I chose to do this with shapes, but I might play around with it and change it up a little bit. So you're covering the picture up here with shapes. And then you can slowly, with your students, I'll expand. So I can do this here with you on the slide. Slowly take away a shape you can even talk about, well, what are these shapes? What is the shape that I have highlighted here? Oh, it's a diamond. That's right. So slowly taking it away, revealing just a sliver of the picture. Can you tell what the animal is?
[18:28] Dr Diane: So since there's so much grass, I would guess a puffin.
[18:33] Katherine: Okay. And you are right. Maybe that might not be something that they're looking at. Are they going to look at the grass, or are they going to look for the animal? Right. But that's something that you can bring up. You can bring up. Well, if there's grass, then it's probably not going to be what you think. So we can also slowly take away another piece. Now we're starting to see the white and the black here. They still might not know. Right. You get the idea. You can slowly take away these pictures. And good job, Diane. You were right. You got it correct.
[19:04] Dr Diane: But I love the face, and it's fascinating to me. And to know that puffins fly and penguins do not is one of those really interesting, quirky things. And puffins don't fly really well, but they fly better than penguins.
[19:22] Katherine: Correct. And then you can see the difference. And then there's that compare and contrast element, too, where you eventually do take this away, and maybe this will be the first picture you change. And you can do different pictures of the animals, but you can look at the way they're standing, too. How are they standing differently? What parts of them are white? What parts of them are orange? How is the beak similar or different? So there's a lot of different things you can do to categorize these animals.
[19:51] Dr Diane: I love that.
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[21:06] Dr Diane: And you had done another activity that I thought was really interesting because it got into engineering design. You had done one where you had looked at the houses, and this struck me especially because the volcano hit the week after we left, right. Was sort of thinking about the fact that you had them look at the houses, look at the structure of some of the houses we had seen, and the grass roofs and stuff like that. And then you've got them designing ways to protect the houses from lava flow, right? And I thought, what a cool way to go beyond just what we normally do in a sensory table where you build the volcano and you erupt it using your baking soda and vinegar and food coloring. So I was wondering if maybe you could share a little bit more of that one, too.
[21:51] Katherine: Sure. So let me quickly show you this picture so you can see. This is when we were in the Westmann Isles and they had that eruption in the, it really destroyed most of that city that was in its path. And this is the leftover lava flow that goes right into this street here. And I have part of my video that I took when I did a hike to that volcano. You can see the lava flow, and you can see where the houses stop and where they used to be. So that was where I came up with this idea of how can we think about maybe diverting the lava or coming up with something, maybe an earlier warning system or something that these kids can create? And you know what? Sometimes I've done something similar with rescuing dolphins. How can we rescue dolphins in the ocean? And they come with some of these designs that these kids, these little kids come up with. And I'm like, wow, you're eight or seven or six, and you're thinking this way because it was a first and second grade class. I can see this actually being implemented in the future. And then we have students who maybe that's their career goal, or maybe they have a foundation where they take care of someone else, and it shows compassion and empathy. So this is the activity where they're talking about cause and effect, too. It's really important. Well, what's going to happen if the volcano erupts? What things will come out of that? And then the engineering. You're still talking about volcanoes and landforms and your problem solving, and you can design those systems to try to divert the path or prevent it completely. It's something that we're still working on in real life, but you never know with all the new inventions and technology. Now, what you could do. The very first activity that comes to mind when you think of volcanoes is creating a volcano out of clay and making that. So then why not use that activity and test out your design, see if it works. See if you really did divert the lava from the homes and maybe even create. I didn't think about this, but maybe they can create a village with Kiva Planks or LEGOs or something probably like that. It's easier to clean. Yes. And seeing if any of those homes got in the way of the flow.
[24:28] Dr Diane: And Sue Fleiss just published a book again, right after we had left Iceland, she published a book designed for the early childhood elementary set about volcanoes (Volcano Experts on the Edge). And in it, the kids are walking across the dormant volcanoes in Iceland. And it could be a really interesting match to be able to share that along with the videos and the challenge.
[24:54] Katherine: Yeah, that's really cool. So that's an idea. And I thought all of these are still developing, but I think that would be a really nice one for them to. Oh, maybe I can show you really quickly.…
[25:07] Dr Diane: Show a little bit from your hike video.
[25:09] Katherine: So this is us walking through those lava fields, and you can see how much all those dark rocks is the lava from the volcano that erupt it. And then here it is. It's going to go into it in just a second. So I'll let it. So, Eldfell is the volcano, and I almost made it to the top. I'm going to stop it just for a second because you can see the lava flow right here. Right here is where you can see all this lava flow. And then if you keep going a little bit more. There's the city. So there's so many more houses that used to be in this area, and now they're not. So if this volcano erupts again, or the one behind it, because there was another one right behind it that's active, what's going to happen?
[26:06] Dr Diane: Exactly. And I'm looking at that picture and I'm getting the shivers because I can see exactly where Barry and I had hiked. While you were doing that hike, we were over on Cliff across the way from you. We should have waved.
[26:20] Katherine: That's right. And that was at, what, 11:30 p.m. at night, I think, too. Yeah.
[26:26] Dr Diane: And you actually had some really interesting stuff in there about the land of the midnight sun and about the seasons. Do you mind sharing a little bit of that as well?
[26:37] Katherine: Not at all. Let me see if I can find it really quick. Here it is. Oh, my gosh. It was so cool. That was such a cool experience. And I was joking with my friends. It was especially nice because I was by myself in the rooms. So it was nice to know that the sun wasn't going to set. So I wouldn't get too afraid at night by myself. But that's a separate issue. But it was so nice. So, yeah, the land of the midnight sun, we never had a sunset. I mean, they said it was sunset, but it never got dark. It was cool. And when I woke up at night, I actually took videos of the times of day. And I think this one is at like 11:00 p.m. Let me see. 11:02.
[27:29] Dr Diane: Good job. And that's Reykjavik.
[27:31] Katherine: That's Reykjavik. That was the first night I was there. And then this was in Vik, I think it was 03:00 so I woke up and looked at the clock. And it is 345 in the morning. Yes. And so cool. And right now, their seasons are changing. But I thought it would be really cool to talk about that for them, not only seasons, because seasons is a whole thing down here. We don't get them. But the midnight sun is such an interesting concept, this activity. I wonder if I still have my Sphere with me. It might be in a basket over there. But this activity is very cool where you get a sphere and you put it on a dowel and you mark where Iceland is. And then you mark where you are on the state and you're holding the light. And if you're turning it, you can see that the sun never quite leaves Iceland, but it does where you are. So you can see why we have those different times of year, and they don't. They have this dark season and a light season, I guess. I don't know if that's what they call it. That's what I would call it if I lived there. That would be pretty cool. So that's a fun way because it's a really hard concept to teach.
[28:59] Dr Diane: Why?
[28:59] Katherine: We have the seasons, the tilt on the axis, and we're tilted towards the sun in part of the year, and then we're not in the other part. It's really difficult to teach that. So I think this is a really cool, hands on visual way of learning this.
[29:15] Dr Diane: And I liked the fact that you connected it to something they could touch and could see, because we know that with early childhood, they've got to have those hands on experiences. And truthfully, they need them all the way up the scale. I mean, high schoolers need hands on as much as our preschoolers do.
[29:33] Katherine: Yes, they do.
[29:34] Dr Diane: But I love the fact you found that connection.
[29:35] Katherine: It started in the upper grades and sort of has trickled down into the lower grades. And I remember, like, five or six years ago, I was implementing STEAM already, and it wasn't as common to hear of STEAM in such an early grade level. And I'm thinking, why not? They always do this sort of stuff. We just didn't call it STEAM.
[29:56] Dr Diane: That's exactly it. We were doing that when I was running my preschool, but we just didn't call it STEAM because the verbiage wasn't there.
[30:04] Katherine: Exactly. Right.
[30:05] Dr Diane: But it's exactly what it was. And then you've also got stuff with weather that you connected to it as well. I see you've added making snow, and I've never seen that recipe — that looks like a really interesting snow recipe.
[30:18] Katherine: Great recipe. And it's so easy, and it's great — baking soda and suave, and that's all you need. And it's so fun for them to mix the two things. And then you're talking not only sensory, but states of matter. And you can bring this into your own weather unit with clouds and precipitation and things like that. And then you can just add in. I like adding in the toy animals for them.
[30:40] Dr Diane: Absolutely.
[30:41] Katherine: And things like that. That's always fun.
[30:44] Dr Diane: Well, you need the play, and there are so many of the little Arctic animals that you could tie in and put in.
[30:52] Katherine: I need to find those puffin figurines. That's what I need next.
[30:56] Dr Diane: You need puffins and you need that Arctic Wolf.
[30:59] Katherine: Yes. And the fox, too.
[31:01] Dr Diane: Yes. I'm sorry, I meant the Arctic fox, not the Arctic wolf. That fox was something else.
[31:07] Katherine: I didn't get to see the fox, but I have the video, so that was good. I was excited for everyone.
[31:12] Dr Diane: I did see the fox. I did not go outside because I had just taken off my wet socks and they were sitting over the radiator, and I was busy interviewing Oli inside in my bare feet for my podcast episode. So we all ran to the window, but I didn't go out.
[31:29] Katherine: Yeah.
[31:32] Dr Diane: So what else would you like to share with us? Are there other gems that you hope that others might be able to take and apply?
[31:39] Katherine: Let me see, because I have so many, I have to run through them. I'm very proud of myself because I came up with this and I thought later on I could have probably just put this all in chat GPT and made them. But that's okay. I had a great time making all these centers. Let's see. Dramatic play.
[32:05] Dr Diane: Great one.
[32:06] Katherine: Yeah. So I love all of these, and I'm excited because I have so many cool outfits that I would never wear on a regular basis that I got to wear with these experiences that we had. And so I would show them. The glacier hike that we did was so awesome. I was so scared doing that one because I was imagining just pure ice, but the crampons that we wore were so strong that it was amazing. And I would teach them about that. And I'll show you just a little bit of our hike. I'm going to turn the sound on because you can hear crunching right when you walk. And then we have the walking stick. We have access with the crampons. We have the harnesses. Our jackets are several layers, all sorts of wear during this time. And I thought, how cool would it be to have that for students to dress up like they're going to go on a glacier hike? So what I did was in this center, in these centers, I should say different types of centers, the glacier one. So bringing in all of these items, we couldn't bring in real crampons, but they could bring in, like, soccer cleats, has the same sort of look, right? And harnesses, puffy jackets, helmets, gloves. All of these would be really fun. And then they can dress up and go on their hike. You can take them outside for this if you want. You can walk around the classroom. And then we learned how to walk, specifically when we went uphill and downhill on the glaciers. So that's another thing that we can teach them is how we're walking in certain ways and why. So that would be a fun, dramatic play center for these students that would be completely different than our normal dramatic plays.
[34:16] Dr Diane: Oh, that is really fun. I love that.
[34:19] Katherine: Yeah. And then, of course, you can do the same thing with where we went on the boat and for the volcano, my favorite one is the glacier, because it's so different.
[34:30] Dr Diane: Absolutely.
[34:31] Katherine: But, yeah, why not bring in all of those clothes for them to play around with?
[34:38] Dr Diane: I was thinking, as you mentioned, the boat, it reminded me that our first day in Reykjavik, my husband and I went out on a whale watching expedition, and so we actually got to see whales breach and got really up close. And then we finished our science of Iceland at the whale Museum. And that might be another set of animals that you could bring in and compare and contrast, being in Florida, you could compare and contrast the whales of Iceland to what you all would see in Florida.
[35:14] Katherine: That's right. That's a great one. I didn't think about whales because I didn't experience that in Iceland. I have, though, in Alaska, so that's another way to tie it in. And comparing also the two different areas of the ArctIc, the similar but different.
[35:34] Dr Diane: Oh, I like that. So you could then kind of compare those experiences as well.
[35:40] Katherine: Yeah, that would be really good.
[35:42] Dr Diane: So if a teacher wanted to go out and they're planning on traveling somewhere this summer or this next school year, how would you suggest that they take what they do and prepare to bring it back to the classroom?
[35:59] Katherine: Yeah. So this is what I've been thinking about recently, too. We went on this amazing professional development this summer. Probably, not probably, it was the best I've ever been on, and it was an amazing experience. But I've also been to some really great places around the world. I've been to Alaska. I've been to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone. Anywhere that you go on vacation? Yes, it's a vacation and have a great time, but document everything that you do, pictures and videos. And when I go on these trips, I love to go to museums, too, and find out, well, that would be a really cool lesson. That would be such a great thing to bring into the classroom. Children's books. When I go to those places, I look for the bookstores first and I look to see what they have in the section for kids, for children, especially the younger ones. But that can be for any age group. And as long as you have your documentation of your pictures and your videos, you can look back. And I bet you can find at least ten activities that you can do with your students. Even if it's not science based, there are so many other things out there for a lot of what I used, I used my phone for all of my pictures, and I used my camera mostly with my phone, but I also had the GoPro. And I think you remember that I had it, like, strapped on me, right? And that was really cool because it was hands free. And so whenever we did something a little dangerous that I didn't want to hold my phone at the same time and risk dropping it, I just turned on my GoPro. And then I thought about it later. I'm so happy that I got it for this trip, and I'm going to start bringing it wherever I go in case we end up doing something like that. So it doesn't mean that you have to do anything extravagant, but even going to the local park that maybe is close to you. For us, it's Everglades. I mean, I can go in and get so much content from my students that I'm not even thinking about necessarily. But it's more exciting when you go back and teach it, because then you're remembering all these wonderful memories that you had. I can't wait to teach this unit because I get teary every time I look at these videos and think of what an amazing time I had.
[38:33] Dr Diane: And I think they're absolutely amazing. And I love what you're saying about having that passion and taking your desire and your need and want to travel and bringing that into the classroom. And you're not curtailing your own experience. Instead, you're adding on to it because you're thinking about, how do I translate this for students? And that can happen literally anywhere you go. And so I appreciate the fact that you brought this up, that it doesn't have to be something like Science in Iceland or Science at Sea. It could literally be your trip to your local park or a trip to your farmers market or a trip to the library or the airport or wherever you happen to be going. And it's all about how you creatively put it together. And what you've done is you've created just the most incredible set of STEAMing into Iceland activities and experiences.
[39:33] Katherine: Thank you.
[39:35] Dr Diane: So if people would like to try out your ideas, I know you've shared some of them on here. Is there a way for them to reach out or be able to share your ideas and give you feedback about what they do?
[39:49] Katherine: I can share my screen for a second because I have a QR code. If they'd like to look and see the whole presentation, they totally may if they want to scan this QR code. You can also email me at kmohr@ssed.org. Or you can follow me on Instagram and send me a DM there. And I always post wherever I go, I post my pictures and my videos to my stories. You can check that out there. And yeah, please feel free to contact me. Feel free to use this. Watch the videos with your students. Tweak the centers. They don't have to be exactly the same as what I wrote. What I wrote is for what I have and for what my knowledge is. But if you have an idea that would work a little bit better for your situation, please go ahead and change it and let me know, because maybe it would be better for me too. I don't know. So give that a try. And yes, absolutely. Reach out and you are free to use these centers and this unit.
[40:56] Dr Diane: I will share all of that in the show notes as well. So where is your next big adventure?
[41:03] Katherine: Well, for Thanksgiving, we're going to take Caribbean Cruise, so you never know what I'm going to learn there. Maybe I'll swim with the sharks, or maybe I'll just sit by the pool. We'll see.
[41:18] Dr Diane: Sounds amazing. Well, Katherine, thank you so much for joining us today on the Adventures in Learning podcast. It has been so much fun to reminisce about Iceland and to see all of the creative, wonderful ways you've taken that experience and created something really special for your preschoolers.
[41:35] Katherine: Thank you so much for having me.
[41:39] Dr Diane: You've been listening to the Adventures in Learning podcast with your host, Dr. Diane. If you like what you're hearing, please subscribe, download and let us know what you think. And please tell a friend. If you want the full show notes and the pictures, please go to drdianadventures.com. We look forward to you joining us on our next adventure.