Bringing the ocean into the classroom with Julianne Mueller-Northcott
Julianne Mueller-Northcott
Science Teacher
Souhegan High School
Amherst, New Hampshire
Winner of the 2019 NMEA Outstanding Teacher Award
Hi everyone! My name is Julianne and I am so excited to be highlighted by NMEA. I have always loved being near, in or learning about the ocean and it is such a gift to share that passion with my students everyday! As an educator in a formal classroom, I try to bring as much of the ocean as I can to my students. They learn how to maintain a 90-gallon, salt water, cold tank where they get to study crab behavior through the year.
I have them access professionally collected data through the Ocean Tracks website (oceantracks.org), which I was lucky enough to be a part of the development and curriculum teams. I try to get my students to take action on issues they care about. For example, last year students in my class were so moved by Rob Stewart's films Sharkwater and Sharkwater Extinction that they created a fundraising campaign called Sabers Saving Sharks, they designed a logo and apparel as a fundraiser to donate money to the World Wildlife Fund in Stewart's memory.
I recently took my students on a field trip on the UNH School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering’s 50-foot research vessel R/V Gulf Challenger, to study water quality of the Great Bay estuary. Students were able to collect data on the water chemistry, participate in a plankton tow and learn about benthic species.
The Ocean Literacy Principles guide my teaching and I have used them to create a standards-based curriculum for our marine science course. I always tell my students that I don't care if they go on to become a marine biologist or if they become a movie star, but that my goal for them is that what we learn about in class will have lasting impression on the choices that they make in the future as citizens of our planet.
Julianne has been a high school science teacher for the last 19 years. She has taught almost all variations of high school science courses, but her favorite course as always been her marine science course that she created at her school. This year in addition to marine science, she is also teaching environmental science and advanced biology.
