RE Log - Spring 2020

SPRING 2020 Ransom Everglades LOG 15 Excellent faculty, natural resources and motivated students elevate STEMat RE As excited as we are to move into the new STEM Center, I am equally proud of our ongoing work at Ransom Everglades that reflects our growing commitment to innovation, interdisciplinary learning and collaboration. As we prepare for our transition into our new, state- of-the-art facility, which will allow us to amplify opportunities for project-based learning and discovery, we are already taking advantage of the experience and talents of our first-rate faculty; our proximity to the bay, an incredible teaching resource; and our students’ extraordinary creativity and desire to learn. In the pages ahead, we offer a glimpse at just a few examples of the high-level work going on at Ransom Everglades every day. We hope you appreciate a common theme that emerges: We are creating opportunities for the innovation and engagement that flourishes when teachers learn side by side with our students. Students feed off that authenticity and rise to the challenge of actively taking part in the process of discovery. That’s part of the excitement of what we have in a place like Ransom Everglades – and you will see that reflected in the stories that follow. We hope you appreciate where this can take us in both honoring our core curriculum and traditions as well as building on them. It’s somewhat of a paradigm shift. By recruiting faculty who are extremely accomplished in and passionate about their fields, and then providing opportunities for them to pursue what they love doing, we accelerate growth in our curriculum. While all new courses and extracurricular activities require thoughtful planning, we are essentially unleashing people to do what andCollaboration STEMat RE they love to do, and do it expertly. There are many benefits to this approach. This school and this campus began as a hub of experiential learning. Dating back to Paul Ransom, faculty members took advantage of the bay, our temperate climate and nature as a teacher of life skills. That tradition continues, but it’s been refined and strengthened. In some sense, what is old is new again. We don’t have to create things from scratch. It’s through our exceptional students, our location, our facilities and our inspired faculty and their relationships that we can get out and do these things. Students get excited when we model what it means to be a student. The “wow” that we experience when we go out in the field, or find out something in the lab, that’s genuine. It’s contagious. When there is content being created anew and unexpected things develop, our students respond with enthusiasm and genuine excitement. They get creative and determined. There’s no limit to what we can do when that happens. Dr. Doug Heller ’80 Chair of the STEM Department Data science teacher Dr. Luis Felipe works with Joseph Gross ’20 and Ben Thorpe ’20 . Gross identified a machine-learning algorithm that proved critical to the award-winning student research described in the story that begins on page 16. Dr. Doug Heller ’80