The things that motivated Lauren are captured here in her own words. The text is included in its entirety although the purpose for which it was written is unknown.
I'll never forget the August afternoon when my brother and I discovered a nearly intact ray washed up on a Cape Cod beach. While he, with his 7-year-old morbid curiosity, poked at it with a piece of driftwood, my immensely more mature (and taller) 10-year-old self watched and wondered how it had ended up there, its gills choked with sand.
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My favorite spots to explore were always the rough, open-ocean beaches, the kind of place where jellyfish warnings were often posted and parents wouldn't let their children in the water for fear of them being swept out to sea by rip currents. I once heard that if you were lucky, you could see whales spouting in the distance. As hard as I looked, I never saw one, but kept scanning the horizon hoping to be one of the lucky ones.
As I got older, I began to spend a lot of time at a friend's summer home on the north shore of Massachusetts. We'd get lost for hours in rocky coves and tidepools, and sharing discoveries with my friend made it even more exciting. Even then, the contrast between that rocky coast and sandy, dune-covered Cape Cod, just a few hours' drive away, amazed me.
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My instinct to explore and ask "why?" was powerfully reawakened in my eighth-grade earth science class. What we learned in the classroom was the framework for our field investigations of the landscape. Not only was observing and thinking on the spot fun, it inspired me to keep on asking questions after the first ones were resolved - and I realized that the experience had a similar effect on my classmates. Field studies really got us to think! Combined with the physical challenge and fun of snaking through a muddy cave or wading under sea arches, Mr. Bouley's class planted the seeds of a future field scientist in me. High school science classes meant traditional indoor labs, and although I enjoyed the experimental process I knew there was a whole world outside with infinite questions waiting to be asked.
When I got to college, I sought out all the opportunities I could to be outside. The mountain woods and streams around my school became a second home, places where I'd watch the subtle changes over seasons and years. Free time meant hiking, camping, cross-country skiing, and canoeing. I filled my class schedule with field science, mostly biology and geology, and it was a rare week when I didn't spend at least one full afternoon on a field lab. I dove into my field projects - I loved asking my own questions, not just following the cookbook experiments of high school chem lab. As time went on the explorations got more challenging as I took opportunities for extended fieldwork all over the continent, and ended up as far afield as Baja California, Montana, and Bermuda. One of the best things about these travels was collaborating with others to do real science, together with the thrill of exploring a new environment. These trips let me use my outdoor skills, as hiking, camping, snorkeling, and the like go hand in hand with fieldwork. Not only did I develop a richer appreciation of natural science, I also gained a few important mentors who helped me see field science from a new perspective - through the eyes of a teacher.
I began my semester as a geology teaching assistant not knowing what to expect. I thought it would be hard work - and it was - but I didn't expect it to be nearly as fun or rewarding to get these students excited about doing geology. My whole outlook on science changed; in all the time I had spent doing research, I sensed there was something missing. Learning with others had always been enjoyable, and so it's only natural that the gap was filled when I began to teach.
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In the year since I finished college, I've started on the path towards becoming the educator I hope to be. As a summer naturalist at an environmental education camp, I spent nearly all my time outside with kids, learning more about how to teach natural history, and recognizing how meaningful the outdoor experience can be for students and their leaders. In my current position as a science instructor, I've expanded on my teaching skills, guiding kids through a range of challenging topics in natural and physical science. Most importantly, I've seen how important people are in the learning process, no matter what the topic or where the lesson takes place. Working with children is always inspiring, and I usually learn more from them than I anticipate. Sharing my passion for learning and exploring is a permanent goal of mine, and so no matter what I do I'll always consider myself a teacher.