Forward Planning

I'm excited to be taking on some new teaching challenges for myself the next couple of years.  At first I was disappointed that I wouldn't be teaching AP physics next year because I've really enjoyed that the last two years but I do get to continue with physics and possibly other subjects (? chemistry? more? Stay tuned.) with 8th grade physical science (which I might be able to teach at a level similar to my HS classes at DSA since Korean -- and by the way, I'm just gonna write 'Korean' and not bother with 'South' unless specified otherwise, which I don't expect to be doing much of -- 8th graders are reputedly ahead of their US counterparts in math) and I also get a new challenge which I'm becoming increasingly excited about which is HS environmental science.  The more I think about how timely environmental science is, possibly particularly so in that part of the world, and how there are so many direct applications and hands-on experiments and research you could do (which might give you an excuse to form a kayaking club to go out and take water samples in the straights between the mainland and the airport island -- pushpin is CDS) the more I'm looking forward to it.  I was reminded of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring recently and am looking forward to reading that (I have it on hold in electronic form at the DPL).  I'm also hoping it might be possible to work some gardening into my curriculum.  The "Dalton" part of Cheongna Dalton School refers to the Dalton International school program founded by Helen Parkhurst.  Besides organizing around the Dalton principles the school has talked about "project-based" learning which I think can be especially fun and worthwhile if I can make it as hands-on (literally), by which I mean physical and tactile, as possible.