I have transitioned away from in-office practice.
My approach to middle school science education is rooted in a fundamental belief: science is not a static collection of definitions to be memorized from a textbook, but an active, investigative toolkit for deciphering the living world around us. Middle school represents a critical developmental junction where students naturally transition from concrete thinking to abstract reasoning. My mission as an educator is to leverage their innate curiosity by anchoring core scientific concepts in real-world applications, experiential learning, and structured collaborative problem-solving.
Having spent over a decade diagnosing clinical conditions and studying public health, I understand that scientific literacy becomes permanent when students see its immediate relevance to their own lives. In my classroom, human anatomy, cellular biology, and physiological systems are taught through a practical lens. When students explore the human body, we don’t just label charts; we analyze it from a functional, mechanical perspective—exploring how systems interact, how public health impacts communities, and how biological concepts dictate daily physical performance. By bridging the gap between abstract biology and the living human experience, students move from passive absorption to active scientific literacy.
My upbringing on a Pacific Northwest llama farm, combined with a lifetime spent exploring ecosystems through hiking, camping, and woodworking, heavily influences my pedagogical methodology. Nature and the physical world are the ultimate classrooms. I prioritize experiential learning—utilizing hands-on laboratory experiments, physical modeling, and ecological observation. Whether we are analyzing the mechanics of building a structure in a workshop or studying local ecosystems and environmental balance, I challenge students to use their hands to engage their minds. This fosters a profound respect for environmental stewardship and teaches students to view their surroundings through the observant eye of a field scientist.
A successful science classroom must be a safe, highly structured, and predictable environment where students feel secure enough to take intellectual risks and fail forward. Drawing directly from eight years of military service as a Navy corpsman, I establish a classroom culture built on mutual respect, clear accountability, and structured teamwork. Science is inherently a collaborative, iterative process. By organizing students into highly functional lab teams, I teach them how to communicate complex data, delegate responsibilities, and exhibit leadership. When a laboratory hypothesis fails, we do not view it as a defeat; we treat it as an objective data point, adapt our parameters, and re-test—building the foundational cognitive resiliency required for all scientific advancements.
Ultimately, my goal as a science teacher is to prepare students to be critical thinkers in an increasingly complex world. By blending advanced clinical insight, a deep passion for the natural world, and the disciplined leadership forged in military service, I strive to inspire a diverse classroom of young learners to look at the world, ask critical questions, gather objective evidence, and confidently discover the answers for themselves.