Read the original article in the Arlington Connection here
by Mechelle Schloss
Washinton Lee High School physics teacher Katherine Shirey will be heading to the South Pole to conduct research experiments in late November 2010. As a chosen fellow of the Knowles Science Teacher Foundation, she will be working on the world’s largest telescope built to detect neutrino particles, the IceCube Neutrino Telescope. Shirey will be picking up the baton from fellow KSTF collegue, Casey O’Hara, physics teacher from Belmont, Calif., currently working in the South Pole on the IceCube project. According to KSTF, this will be “the biggest research project ever attempted in Antarctica.”
How long have you taught at Washington-Lee?
I started in the fall of 2007. This is my third year.
Where did you grow up, attend high school school/college? What years did you graduate?
I grew up in Arlington with my parents and two sisters. My parents are still in Arlington, my dad Robert is active in volunteering in my classroom now that he’s retired. I graduated from Yorktown High School in 1999. Attended the University of Virginia (BA Physics 2004, BA studio art 2004) and the Curry School of Education at UVA (Master of Teaching 2007).
Did you know early on that you wanted to pursue a math and science oriented career? Was teaching always on your radar? What motivated you to pursue a teaching career?
Teaching was always at or near the top of my “What I want to be” list. It was obvious at the start of my junior year physics class that I would pursue physics in college. Physics was a subject that answered all of the questions I had long pondered. I was so surprised that there was a subject that addressed my curiosities about the universe and our surroundings. It was strange that I’d always been told physics was hard, but my teacher Deborah Waldron, who is still teaching at Yorktown High, made it really fun and relative. I wanted to do that too, to get the interesting parts of physics to as many students as possible because I really feel that it is relative to all of our experiences and lives.
What brought you to Arlington, and Washington Lee?
I wanted to move to a bigger, metropolitan area and knew that I would enjoy living near my parents and one of my sisters. W-L was hiring so it was an obvious first choice for a job. I know about a dozen or so teachers working in Arlington now that were in my class in high school. Evidently, we all had the impulse to move back here and contribute to the community that did a great job teaching us. I think that as a group we are evidence of how well Arlington supports its students and families.
What kind of feedback are you getting from your students about your upcoming trip to the South Pole?
My students are interested in my South Pole trip, but for the students this year, the trip is a very long way off and that’s still a little too abstract for them to get interested in. They are interested in the South Pole in general and had an opportunity to flush out and correct some Antarctic misconceptions that they held. The students are demanding and want educational subjects that they can relate to. It’s been pretty exciting to find ways that their everyday can relate to the South Pole and the research happening there.
Through KSTF and PolarTrec we have been in contact with Casey O’Hara, a Knowles fellow and physics teacher from Berkeley, Calif. We have been following his journey and doing some activities that he’s also tried at the South Pole, like making ice cream. In fact, last summer Casey and I, with four other KSTF fellows, spent three weeks training for the South Pole experience and brushing up on our astrophysics so that we’d understand the project fully. We even led activities at an upward bound summer camp in Minnesota to test out strategies with real students. Our collaborative efforts have helped to make this whole Antarctic unit more meaningful and comprehensive for my students. I think it is definitely more interesting for them because so many classrooms and teachers are connected and involved.
When is your departure, and how long will you be there?
I will leave late November 2010 for four weeks at the South Pole, plus travel time on each end. While I’m away a long-term sub will take my place at W-L with financial support from KSTF.
Will you be able to web cast back to the students at Washington Lee while you are there?
Yes! I will be able to communicate via satellite internet and satellite phone for about six hours a day. The hours the satillite is visible for communication happens to coincide with the school day here at W-L, which makes it very convenient! I will also be able to do skype-style video chats, Wimba powerpoint presentations, audio, and regular text, photo, and video sharing.
How did you become involved with KSTF and IceCube?
I joined KSTF in 2006. I found out about the KSTF fellowship from my teacher prep program. KSTF is an ambitious organization. By supporting and providing high quality PD to well-qualified new teachers, they hope to improve the science and math education of students all across America. They project that by 2011 they will have touched around one million students.
At the 2008 summer conference Jim Madsen, head physicist for IceCube at University of Wisconsin River Falls, and Eric Muhs, a secondary physics teacher who went as a teacher liaison to IceCube, spoke to the fellows about teacher involvement in science and the importance of students witnessing real research, and teachers as scientists. Several of us were smitten. We didn’t just want to go into the field, we wanted to go to the South Pole with IceCube. We applied through PolarTrec and Casey was accepted to go this year, 2009. Through a KSTF/IceCube collaboration I will go next year. It will be the first time that such a large network of teachers is involved with a teacher-researcher partnership. With the opportunity to go two years in a row, it will be really interesting to see what deep connections we can create.
What are you doing to prepare yourself emotionally and physically for your stay in the South Pole?
Not too much at this point. I will have some helpful lessons from Casey, I’m sure, and have attended trainings in Alaska and Wisconsin to learn procedures and science for the mission. Someone at my gym suggested I do core strengthening — ha!
What effect do you hope your involvement in the IceCube project will have on your students at Washington-Lee?
I hope they learn about what scientists do just as much as they learn about neutrinos and IceCube. I think this collaboration is a unique glimpse into the lives of scientists (and graduate students) and the research they conduct. Many students think that science is a static topic dictated from a book to the world. Science is an ongoing, tentative, and human endeavor.
This message of the nature of science is a big part of my classroom instruction. The involvement with IceCube is a terrific example. IceCube is subatomic particle-astro-physics, but it’s also true that there’s lot of other sciences and math involved too which makes great ties to topics in my class and other classes the students have previously had. Even if the neutrino physics elements are too much of a jump for some of my students, there are useful connections for every student.
What type of research experiments and other responsibilities will you specifically be responsible for while you are there?
I will be working hands-on with the IceCube neutrino telescope and IceTop array. I will be testing and setting up photo-collector modules, filling tanks with water and preparing the electronics to collect data.
Will you be making other trips like this in the future?
I would certainly like to explore other ways to involve real-world science in my classroom. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to visit Antarctica again, but I would love to explore the possibility.
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