I taught 9th-grade Honors and College Prep biology at Revere High School, a large, urban school in Revere, MA from 2010-2015.

While there, not only did I help my students learn basic biology and earn some of the school’s highest state exam results, but I also helped the school earn gold from the National Center for Excellence in Urban Education and co-founded an environmental club with my students with whom I canvassed, demonstrated, advocated for a refillable water bottle station in the cafeteria, planted trees and rallied in New York City at the People’s Climate March with over 400,000 other people.

At Revere, I also created a flipped classroom curriculum including a YouTube Channel with explainer videos that has over 150,000 views. I also helped other faculty reconcile educational standards reform with the core skills we seek to teach young people through the development of school-wide literacy rubrics.

From 2016-2017 and the spring of 2018, I taught introductory biology to 9-12th-grade students at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH, where I fully immersed myself in their Harkness pedagogy. While there, I also advised the DIVEST Exeter Club and served on the Climate Action Day planning committee.

I taught for shorter amounts of time at Codman Academy, a small, urban charter school in Dorchester, MA (2018) and Foxboro High School (2011).

Much as I loved teaching in the traditional classroom, my students helped me see that I was not actually providing them with the real skills they need to survive and thrive in a 21st century that will be largely defined by the climate crisis. This is what eventually led me to climate justice education.