About
Some teachers read about the Arctic. Kirsten lived there.
I became a teacher because somebody, once, made me believe that the world was worth paying attention to. I owed it forward.
In my fourth year of teaching, I took a job in Utqiagvik, Alaska — the northernmost community in the United States, hours from anywhere by plane, dark for two months of the year. I planned to stay one.
I stayed six.
What kept me wasn't the cold or the romance of the place. It was watching scientists arrive on the tundra with research that was rewriting our understanding of the planet — and then watching classrooms a few miles away learn from textbooks printed five years before those measurements were taken.
The gap was not knowledge. The gap was access.
Odyssey Discovery exists because I'm not willing to wait for that gap to close on its own. We put working scientists into classrooms through Field Notes: Explorer. We put educators into the places where the science is happening through our expeditions. And we put the rest of it — the fieldwork, the people, the discoveries — on screen through Field Notes: Uncovered, free for anyone.
We're just getting started. If your students should be meeting the scientists who are reading this planet right now, I'd love to hear from you.
— Kirsten
The network
Scientists who actually want to be in your classroom.
Our scientist network grew out of relationships, not cold emails. Researchers from NOAA, Arctic field stations, university programs, and Indigenous knowledge keepers — all of whom have said yes to making their work visible to students.
Bring it to your school
A conversation is the next step.
Whether it's one classroom or an entire district, we'd love to talk through what fits.