Christa Buccola Henriquez is the environmental science and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) coordinator for the Garrison School. She began Jan. 6, succeeding Rachel Arbor, who launched a consulting firm.
How did you decide to become a science teacher?
I had an honors biology teacher at Century High School in Pocatello, Idaho, named Mr. Loftin. He helped me fall in love with science. In one project we identified the ingredients in a bottle of store-bought Italian dressing. We all had our lab stations, with beakers and burners. He gave us the ingredient label and said: “Prove to me that these things are in this bottle.” So, we boiled it and identified the water. We strained it and identified things like oregano and other spices. At one point we left the container sitting out for a while and there was this gummy, gooey substance. We determined that it was xanthan gum, the food additive you see on so many labels.
You taught in New York City. What projects did you do with your students?
I was a sixth-grade science teacher at The Mott Hall III School in the South Bronx. One thing we did was visit the Taconic Outdoor Education Center in Philipstown for overnight field trips. For some of the students, this was the first time they were really in nature. We would sleep in cabins, eat in their cafeteria and measure our food waste output. The forest blew the kids’ minds in the same way that the salad-dressing experiment blew my mind. Something they loved was the flashlight-free hike at night. We learned about the science of the eye, and rhodopsin, a light-sensitive protein that allows you to see at night. The kids were excited. Rhodopsin will stay with them forever.
On May 30, the Garrison School will host its fourth Youth Climate Summit, with 325 participants from five area schools. Anything new on the agenda?
We’re making the programs more interactive. The presentations are 15 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of learning. As an example, we have a program on sustainable fashion. After the lecture, the kids will make sustainable tote bags from old T-shirts. We also want presentations to have an action component. So, if students learn about habitat destruction, they may write letters to legislators urging them to fix it. We’re also going to have three sixth graders give 90-minute tours of the 180-acre school forest. They’ll talk about the history of the forest as well as the projects we do there, such as measuring how much carbon is taken out of the air by the trees. They’ve been practicing with their classmates.
Any fun projects your students are working on now?
My third graders are designing a watering system for our garden that won’t require us to pull hoses from the garage to the back of the school. They’ve come up with several solutions. There’s an in-ground collection system with a receptacle under the surface of the soil and a piping system that branches to the plants. There’s an elevated rain-collection system that would also have piping. Two girls came up with solar panels that open and close the water collectors based on the weather. The idea is to keep out leaves and debris. They’ve blown me away.
Are these projects going to be installed?
Possibly. We need an engineer to help us build it. But the real goal is to bring science to life. When I fell in love with science, I thought I wanted to be a doctor. But there are many ways to love science. For these two girls, they’re falling in love with science through solar panels and a watering system.
