At its core, teaching is about sharing your personal enthusiasm and knowledge with others, inspiring them to ask more questions and seek more answers. For me, teaching is as natural as breathing. I love guiding students to observe, understand, and explain the world around us. I especially enjoy the delight and humor of middle schoolers. I see the world through a lens of science, and encourage students to inquire deeper: it's not just "what a beautiful rainbow", but "what causes a rainbow?".

My classroom abounds with life – the salmon and trout tanks, and the connected school greenhouse where students learn to grow plants, experiment with genetics, and simply enjoy the atmosphere of being surrounded by living things. A favorite memory is of a boy who came in every single morning to greet and feed the goldfish in the small pond in the greenhouse. I can still see him, kneeling next to the pond, saying good morning to his friends, grounding himself and starting each day with joy.

Teachers are not wealthy; our richness comes from opening the world to our students. For me, that means getting them outside and into different environments to make personal connections with nature. Baba Dioum wrote “In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. And we will understand only what we are taught." I'd love to use most of the money to create a field trip fund for my school, and the rest to take my own children on a trip for us.