Teacher

Name: Mieke Eggermont
Email: Eggermont_mieke at hotmail dot com

Profession: Biology teacher
School: KA III Voskenslaan Ghent Belgium
Province & Country: East Flanders BELGIUM

Age: 31


Research Areas, Expertise or Topics:

• Veterinarian with expertise in aquatic species
  ( University of Hawaii )
   
• Master in Marine and Lacustrine Science

Thesis: developing ready-to-teach lectures to upgrade basic knowledge of Oceans and seas in High School

See curriculum vitae

When I was asked to join this expedition I did not doubt for one second. This is a once in a life time experience.

When I was studying to become veterinarian I started scuba diving. From that day forward I developed a special interest for Oceans and Seas. Once I started working (part time veterinarian, part time teacher) I decided to take extra classes in navigation, oceanography, etc. But my hunger for more marine information kept growing. I finally decided to study an extra master: Marine and Lacustrine Sciences. Combining this study with my full time biology teaching job in high school gave me the opportunity to translate marine information towards the pupils in my classes. When they had to learn ecology, I taught them all about aquatic ecosystems. When bacteria came up, I made them enthusiastic with stories about the recent developments in marine microbiology and molecular techniques. Etc.

What I found out soon is that pupils are very interested in oceans and seas but know almost nothing about it.

I decided to work on the lack of basic marine knowledge within the public (second and third grade high school) as subject for my master thesis.

Besides performing interest and curriculum analysis I worked out potential solutions: one of them is creating 'ready-to-teach packages' on marine related topics (that fit in the present high school curricula). I figured that teachers could be motivated to educate their pupils about oceans and seas when they could use already prepared lectures (power point presentation together with a teachers manual) of course free of charge.

By joining this expedition I want to experience what oceanographic research is like, learn more about the deep sea ecosystem, the artic region etc. to include this in future ready-to-teach packages. I want to saturate the lectures with visual information (pictures and video fragments) and try to transfer some of my own enthusiasm into them.

For the pupils of the school I'm teaching in (and of course everybody else that is interested) I will create an online diary of the experiences on board. Together with geography we will work out a special 'pole' day next year where this expedition will find lots of attention.