When asked when she first started working with students, Linda Torgerson laughed and said, \u201cAbout a hundred years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was actually in the early 1980s. Torgerson worked at the Juneau Cooperative Preschool for about 18 years before becoming a classroom teacher at the Juneau Community Charter School in 1998. She retired after 11 years and now works at the charter school part time teaching nature studies.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think one of the things children need very early in their life is to fall in love with the natural world,\u201d the 67-year-old educator said.<\/p>\n
This sort of philosophy is one of the reasons Discovery Southeast is giving Torgerson the Discovery Award on April 30. Every year, the outdoor education nonprofit honors a teacher who\u2019s excelled at integrating nature into their teaching.<\/p>\n
One of the ways Torgerson does this is by focusing on a new plant each week with the students she works with. She brings in samples, such as salmon berries, fiddlehead ferns or yellow violets. Sometimes Torgerson will share poisonous examples, like false hellebore or yew plants. She\u2019s planted amaryllis bulbs with her students.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe majority of them fall in love with nature just by watching those plants and watching them change,\u201d Torgerson said.<\/p>\n
She doesn\u2019t claim is to be a botanist, but she does claim to know young children very well and to know what they like.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m kind of like a young child myself in that I am still caught up in the wonder,\u201d Torgerson said.<\/p>\n
Her teaching activities are interactive experiences. It might be a treasure hunt, looking at the underside of a leaf or a game of tag that involves knowing the difference between a conifer tree and a deciduous tree.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can teach them forever and they don\u2019t necessarily remember, but if we play a game where you have to tag a conifer, they will remember it that way,\u201d Torgerson said.<\/p>\n
Torgerson brings the natural world into the classroom and she also takes the students outside. They go to Evergreen Cemetery to look at trees, Basin Road and the beach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are just so many nice places to take kids,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Every fall, Torgerson takes students on the Mount Roberts Tramway and they hike as high as they can go.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a lot of kids, it\u2019s the first time they\u2019ve ever been in the alpine,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Harborview Elementary School kindergarten teacher Elisabeth Hauser learned a lot about being an early childhood educator when Torgerson volunteered in the classroom. Hauser said Torgerson loves the outdoors and engages students.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just have an instant connection with her because she\u2019s able to draw in every single child with the activities that she does. A lot of that is her passion and her excitement,\u201d Hauser said.<\/p>\n
Whether it\u2019s through painting with the juice of blueberries or dissecting herring, Hauser said the students are involved and connected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose experiences are going to draw them to the natural world and make them feel more comfortable,\u201d Hauser said.<\/p>\n
Hauser is also on Discovery Southeast\u2019s board of directors. The board selected Torgerson from several nominations.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery nominee was incredible. They\u2019re all doing amazing things with their students, but Linda is this legacy in our town. This is her life and passion. We just really felt like she not only deserved the honor but also should be celebrated,\u201d Hauser said.<\/p>\n
For teachers who may be looking for ideas on how to incorporate nature into learning, Torgerson suggests bringing the natural world, like things from the beach or plants, inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cBring interesting things into the class and let children explore them. Show your own interest and your own learning about those things and the children will come along with you,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Torgerson said it can be as simple as going outside with students during recess.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are lots of things to look at outside even at a playground or on a town walk,\u201d she said. \u201cI think you have to model what you want them to do. If you want them to notice the natural world, do that with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Discovery Southeast is presenting Linda Torgerson with the Discovery Award during its annual banquet and auction. The event takes place at 5:30 on April 30 at the Juneau Arts & Culture Center.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Lisa Phu at 523-2246 or lisa.phu@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When asked when she first started working with students, Linda Torgerson laughed and said, \u201cAbout a hundred years ago.\u201d It was actually in the early 1980s. Torgerson worked at the Juneau Cooperative Preschool for about 18 years before becoming a classroom teacher at the Juneau Community Charter School in 1998. She retired after 11 years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":9405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-9404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9404"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}