As I sit here in the Houston airport, waiting for my long delayed flight home to Florida from a week in Lafayette, Louisiana.. I can’t help but think of how amazing it has been to keep coming back to this conference. The friends, the experiences, the resources. It’s rare a conference both makes you feel like a part of something bigger, and also seems so small that you learn everyone’s names. NMEA is that, and the more often you go, the better the experience gets.
Friendships, the ones revisited and the ones newly made
One of the best parts about regularly going to a conference is getting to meet up with people that I literally see once a year and picking up right where we left off.
As one of my yearly renewed friends said this week
“I feel like we’re at the point in our lives where we only see our best friends once a year and it’s okay because sometimes that’s all we need”.
I roomed with one of my first friends I made at this conference, who lives literally across the country, and I felt like we didn’t even miss a beat, just got ourselves up to date on our lives and kept moving forward. Seeing people once a year seems like not enough time to be a true friendship, but the connections made here are lasting and build on a foundation on similar loves and interests. After three years of going to NMEA, these renewed friendships are just another reason to keep me excited and most of all keeps me coming back every year.
Experiencing new, exciting, and unique things
One of the best things about this conference is NMEA’s constant strive to making sure the participants get a cultural experience for the region the conference is in for that year. From past villages featuring the creole people of Lafayette to restaurants down in the swampy wharf regions nearby. We got to eat, drink, and party our way through the secrets hotspots of Lafayette learning about the histories and peoples in the region.
One of the other ways we get to experience new and exciting things in the region we are visiting is by choosing a field trip! This year I chose to go on a field trip into the cypress lake of Lake Martin to go kayaking in the swamp!
This kayaking experience was incredibly calming and refreshing. From the beautiful cypress trees that swish in the light breeze, to the hydrophobic lily pads that let water pool in their center, the swamps of this lake were serene and beautiful. Around every corner was something exciting to see and capture, including many egrets, little blue herons, and lots of anhingas.
Resources and Networking
Conferences provide such a wonderful opportunity to network and find new ideas, resources, and skills for teaching our students. This year some of my favorite ideas were centered around art in science.
One of the talks centered on using data to make friendship bracelets. While this sounds a little odd in theory, using the National Sea Level Explorer we made our bracelets match our local regions predicted sea level rise over the next decade. Mine showed Tampa Bay’s sea level rise of 3 inches by 2050! While this idea was amazing I also thought of the possibilities for other data based friendship bracelets! Consider temperature changes or coastal erosion levels and how those bracelets might show the data in a new and innovative way that students can take with then anywhere!
Oddly enough I focused on some more art this year, specifically place based art projects! Artist Boat does a kayak and painting tour into their local estuary to “paint what they see”, getting their students to consider the implications and impacts of their local region and gain more of a sense of place that can remind them of the importance of their local region.
Experiences at the Table
On top of all the changes every year with new venues and regions, I also ran my first table this year! Running a table is a bit of a stressful experience, especially when you’re the only one from your organization there to run it, but it was greatly beneficial to getting our shark tagging lesson out there into the world of marine science education! Tabling gave me the opportunity to grow my connections and find other educators who could utilize my ideas in their education settings! I have made some great connections this year and can’t wait to see where these new partnerships go!
All in all…
If you’re an educator, scientist, really anyone in the field of science education, make sure you’re going to conferences. Conferences provide so much to help grow us as an educator and a scientist. Presenting what you know helps get everyone else onto a new and innovative page of science education and helps you know how you can improve something by seeing it in a new light. I never regret going to conferences like this, and will continue to go to NMEA for the friends, the connections, and the future plans. Every year is a new adventure and I can wait to see it continue to grow my experiences.
