Why Naperville teacher's summer at sea helps students

The people at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration must have sensed Leah Johnson's genuine nature as strongly as her students and co-workers do.

When the Naperville Central High School science teacher applied to NOAA's Teacher at Sea program, hoping to spend part of her summer conducting real scientific research on the ocean, she was a lock. And when she left the ship to which she was assigned for two weeks, the chief scientist called her the best teacher he's welcomed aboard.

In between, Johnson, 35, weighed and measured fish for 12 hours a day, gauging diversity among populations in the North Atlantic and learning how scientists operate.

“I feel like as a teacher, I'm always a learner,” she said.

But aboard Pisces, where she was assigned through the program that gives educators a greater understanding of ocean life and maritime research, “I was definitely on the learning end the entire time.”

Now back at Naperville Central, it's Johnson's job to translate her ocean adventure into lessons that actually mean something to teenagers.

No small feat, by any means, but nothing more than a day at the office for a teacher who makes everyone around her perform better just by staying true to herself and her task: to teach.

Not to lecture. Not to judge. Not to hand out answers or simply pass time. But to teach.

“Going through high school and early in college, I didn't think teaching was something I'd ever want to do,” said Johnson, who overcame her quiet tendencies and decided not to study art in order to find her purpose leading science lessons. “It's funny now because I love it and can't imagine doing something different.”

Johnson is in her third year teaching weather and the environment, geology, biology, chemistry and dynamic earth sciences at Naperville Central.

She's reshaping her lesson plans this year to incorporate her summer experience as a guest aboard Pisces, a 210-foot-long research ship that dropped nets in July along rocky reefs as far as 75 miles from the coast of North Carolina.

Aboard the ship with her was a science crew of 10 NOAA researchers and a sailing crew of 30. She spent her days sorting through mounds of flopping fish in sprawling nets, logging long lists of facts about them so researchers could determine whether the populations caught commercially are there to stay.

She did this with no real experience in the field of fish, but with an abundant enjoyment of all things ocean.

“I dissected a fish in eighth grade,” she said. “I've gone fishing and I eat fish, but that was the extent of it.”

If she and her fellow researchers found too many adult fish and not enough young ones, that was a bad thing. If they counted too few of one species and too many of another, that was another sign something was amiss.

No conclusions were drawn from the research Johnson helped conduct aboard Pisces. But Chief Scientist Zeb Schobernd said the data contributes to a yearslong project to monitor Northern Atlantic fish populations. Allowing a teacher like Johnson to conduct some of that research helps NOAA achieve one of its goals: informing the public about the state of our oceans and threats to their health.

“There's no better way to do that than to work with a teacher whose job it is to take scientific information and make it accessible to kids,” Schobernd said.

For Johnson, the data she gathered will help convey the message she wants to teach: that science is both important and interesting.

“There are a lot of environmental issues specific to the ocean that still matter even though we're miles away,” Johnson said.

Now, she has new examples about those issues — like the invasion of certain species that aren't normally found in natural ecosystems.

“When I was on the NOAA ship Pisces this summer, which was awesome, we saw a lot of lionfish,” she tells her weather and environment class as students work on a project about an oceanic problem of their choice. “They come from the Indo-Pacific region, not the Atlantic. They're not supposed to be there.”

The knowledge she shares gets students talking about why there are too many lionfish and what should be done about it. It gets a couple of them fantasizing about careers — even ones that likely exist only in their imaginations, like lionfish bounty hunters. But it's a start and it represents a spark of interest in the scientific topics Johnson is trying to teach.

After her trip on Pisces, Johnson knows which small fish get eaten by which bigger fish — all the way up the food chain. She has information she can present in a “side-by-side project,” teaching in the same format in which her students will relay their findings about an ocean problem. She sees herself as a facilitator and her students as participants, not as passive receivers.

“What good is it for me to assign something that I'm not doing myself?” she says.

Johnson's approach to teaching makes instructors around her better, says Naperville Central science teacher Megan Hopkins, simply because Johnson does things the right way. She won't take shortcuts that make things easier on the teacher, like letting students present in large groups even though they won't learn as much that way, or grading presentations based on length and formatting instead of quality of content.

Even better, Hopkins said, Johnson is her true self. Always. She's engaging, collaborative, helpful and understanding.

“She's a very genuine person; she's never judgmental,” Hopkins said. “You feel like you can make your mistakes around her and she doesn't ever make you feel bad about it.”

Johnson's curiosity and enthusiasm help reignite the purpose in those around her.

“She was excited about everything,” said Pisces survey technician Danielle Power, who spent 12-hour shifts in close quarters with Johnson as they worked aboard Pisces. “And when someone is that excited, it renews your passion about things.”

Despite growing up in the suburbs and visiting the ocean only a handful of times, Johnson has always loved open water.

“Lake Michigan kind of feels like an ocean sometimes, so I'll take it,” she said.

And she always wanted to journey to the ocean to learn more about its majesty.

“It was an experience I was always interested in having on some level,” Johnson said about her summer at sea. “It was a perfect opportunity to have that ocean voyage experience, then to bring something back to the classroom and make it tangible for the kids.”

What's tangible are the otoliths she keeps in small paper pouches, the ear stones that grow like tree rings, telling researchers the age of a fish. She pulled them out of the fish herself, a vivid story she can share.

What's tangible are the photos fellow researchers snapped as Johnson was hard at work, “covered in fish slime and scales,” as Power described it.

“Fish pictures are just fun,” Johnson said.

Take the shot of her going eye-to-eye with a gray triggerfish, pinching in her cheeks to make her face mirror the fish. Or the shot from aboard the deck that somehow shows the vastness of the ocean beyond.

Johnson has all of these fun photos, odd ear stones and lasting memories to inform her teaching. So now, all that's left to do is what she loves the most: teach.

“She's a wonderful person to work with,” Hopkins said. “I feel like she makes me a better teacher.”

Curriculum vitae

Leah Johnson

<b>Education</b>• Bachelor of arts in geology from Cornell College, 2003

• Master of science in earth and planetary sciences from University of New Mexico, 2007

• Secondary science teacher certification from Northern Illinois University, 2013

<b>Teaching experience</b>• Naperville Central High School science teacher since August 2013

• Sycamore High School student teacher, January to April 2013

• DeKalb High School tutor, January to April 2012

• Teaching assistant at Sylvan Learning Center in Coralville, Iowa, 2004-05

• Visiting art teacher at Evanston Ecology Center, summer 2000

<b>Achievements</b>• NOAA Teacher at Sea participant, summer 2015

• Exemplary student teacher award from Northern Illinois University, spring 2013

• National Science Foundation Graduate K-12 Fellowship, 2007-08 and 2010

• President of the Association of Geology Graduate Students at University of New Mexico, 2009-10

• Gene Hinman Award for fieldwork and academics from Cornell College, 2003

<b>Tips from a great teacher</b>• “You have to do right by your kids. You have to figure out what's best for them. It's not a one-size-fits-all situation.”

• “My job is to keep looking for ways to help them develop certain skills, develop their confidence and see how these skills can help them.”

• “Taking advantage of opportunities that get you out of your comfort zone is huge. Try something new and try something out of the classroom and find ways to make science relevant.”

<b>Talking about …</b>“You could always tell that her mind was churning, looking at ways she could collect the information and bring it back to her students.”

— Zeb Schobernd, NOAA chief scientist on Pisces

“She's very driven and focused but comfortable enough to ask any and all questions when she was curious or unsure about things. And she definitely wasn't afraid to get dirty!”

— Danielle Power, survey technician aboard Pisces

“I feel like she makes me a better teacher. She's a good reminder of what you should do.”

— Megan Hopkins, Naperville Central High School science teacher