Glimpsing a faraway world

One of the fundamental challenges for teachers is to connect students with real world issues from the confines of a tiny classroom.
How do you inspire students to care about the world's shrinking rain forests and melting ice caps by giving them reading assignments from textbooks?
For a handful of Framingham teachers, that problem has been all but solved. Thanks to another grant from the CARLISLE Foundation, a third group of teachers will travel across the world next month and communicate everyday with their students at home.
The destination again this winter is the Pantanal region of Brazil, where three local teachers will study the endangered river otter and communicate by way of the Internet and satellite phones with their classes.
"While we're there, the kids will actually be able to ask questions," said Michelle Masella, a special education teacher at Cameron Middle School. "We have a large Brazilian population. I think it's a great connection for them to have their teacher in their culture."
Karen Schliefke, a science teacher at Walsh Middle School, has a unit planned for the spring on the diversity of life. Now she'll be able to show photos and give personal accounts of how cattle ranching has begun to compromise the habitat of an endangered species in South America.
"It certainly fits very well into our curriculum," she said. "I'm in a very lucky position."
The group headed to Brazil next month is the third to travel with the Maynard-based Earthwatch Institute in the last 12 months. Teachers traveled to Brazil and Mexico last year. The CARLISLE Foundation has planned to award a third installment of the grant next year.
Fuller Middle School teacher Vanda Figueiredo said she was inspired to take a trip herself after she learned about the trips her colleagues took last year.
Figueiredo, who herself is Brazilian, teaches language arts and English as a second language, but does so by talking to students about global warming and other real life issues.
"I think that makes teaching more meaningful," she said. "I hope to engage my students and make them aware of the need for environmental preservation."
The teachers will keep online journals and update a Web site every night while they are in Brazil. Students in Framingham will e-mail them questions and talk to them via satellite phone during the trip.
"There's a lot of applications for when they return of what they've learned," said Meg Warren of Earthwatch. "They're going to be studying the habitat of the otter, … going out, spotting them, counting them, seeing whether the number of otters have increased or decreased since last year.
"The teachers will learn how science is conducted by researchers in the field, and then they can apply those same methods with their students," Warren said.
The teachers leave Feb. 11, and are scheduled to rendezvous with scientists on Feb. 12. They will be in Brazil for more than a week.
A trip to the Pantanal, a massive expanse of wetlands home to piranhas, crocodiles and anacondas, is no vacation.
"I think I'm just excited," Schliefke said. "The only thing I'm kind of nervous about is coming face to face with some of the snakes down there."

(Tyler B. Reed can be reached at 508-626-4423 or treed@cnc.com)

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STAFF PHOTO BY BEAR CIERI
Karen Schliefke, a science teacher at Walsh Middle School, has a unit planned for the spring on the diversity of life. Now she'll be able to show photos and give personal accounts of how cattle ranching has begun to compromise the habitat of an endangered species in South America.