Follow a Researcher: Engaging schoolchildren in Falkland Islands research expedition
This winter, University of Maine graduate student Kit Hamley will research an extinct species of fox called the warrah in the Falkland Islands. While on her expedition, the Bozeman, Montana native will connect with K–12 students in Maine and around the country through Twitter chats as part of UMaine’s Follow a Researcher™ (FAR) program.
“When we got back to Cusco after six weeks in the field,” Hamley said about her FAR expedition with Charles Rodda in Peru last spring, “we saw a WABI-TV news piece where they had visited Hudson Elementary School during one of the live Q&A sessions with us [on glaciers high in the Andes of Southern Peru]. It actually brought tears to my eyes to see the interviews with the kids who had been following along and to hear about all they had learned and to see how they had been interacting with the program. …[I]t is a really powerful thing to take what you love doing and share that with kids in a meaningful way and to inspire them.”
Read more about Hamley’s experience in Peru and her upcoming FAR Falkland Islands expedition.