Alison has been an educator for over 30 years. She earned her Bachelor's in biology from St. Olaf College and her Masters of Education from University of Minnesota - Duluth. She began her teaching career in environmental education, exploring and teaching in diverse locations such as Catalina Island Marine Institute in California and Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Since 2001, Alison has taught a variety of science courses for the Duluth Public Schools, including biology, human anatomy & physiology, earth science, plant science, intro to agriculture/food/natural resources, and intro to teaching. She worked as a teacher ambassador for the National Center for Science Education from 2019-2021 and was awarded the Goldfine Goldstar Teacher award in 2022. Alison is passionate about helping students connect with each other and the world around them. Her classroom is filled with active conversations and hands-on learning.

For her Fulbright Inquiry Project, Alison will be studying how schools in Athens and throughout Greece incorporate citizen science and outdoor data collection into their curriculum. Citizen science experiences have been proven to encourage critical thinking, foster a connection to the outdoors and increase student agency regarding local environmental actions. Alison will work with teachers who have used citizen science projects in their classrooms, observing and learning alongside the students. “My goal is to gather best-practices for how teachers can incorporate citizen science into their classrooms more easily and more frequently,” says Alison. “When students can be outside, experiencing the natural world first-hand, their learning is so much more meaningful. Then if we could add our local information to crowd-sourced data platforms, students in Duluth Minnesota can be connected to researchers and communities throughout the world”. After testing out the lessons in Minnesota & Greek classrooms with popular citizen platforms such as iNaturalist, Alison plans to run professional development sessions introducing the newly developed tools and sample lessons to teachers in Duluth, as well as sharing the materials with phenology education networks in the US, such as the University of MN PIMS program and Nature's Notebook.