1. AmeriCorps: Service Portfolio November 14, 2014
Taylor Luneau
Teton Science
Schools
Field Education
AmeriCorps Intern
Fall, 2014
About Me
Table of Contents
A local of the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, I spent my
formative years exploring the ridgelines of the Green Mountains
and fishing and hunting the diverse landscape of New England.
After high school I spent two years traveling and playing semi-
professional hockey until eventually returning to Vermont to
attend Saint Michaels College. While there, I became a prominent
student leader for the Wilderness Program, guiding backcountry
pursuits ranging from rock and ice climbing to backcountry
skiing. After spending two years guiding professionally for Petra
Cliffs Mountaineering School, completing internships with the
USFWS fisheries division as well as an independent wildlife
biologist and further exploring the mountains of New England, I
moved to Jackson to continue my passion for outdoor education
as an instructor with the Teton Science Schools."Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people
are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is
going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that
mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as
fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as
fountains of life." – John Muir
Pg. 1. About me
Pg. 2 Teaching Pedagogy
Pg. 3 Goals and teaching
development
Pg. 6 Instructor feedback
Pg. 7 Leadership in science
Pg. 9 Children’s Learning Center
Pg. 10 Idaho Outreach
Pg. 11 Transference

2. TaylorLuneau Fall, 2014
2
Teaching Pedagogy
As a passionate outdoor enthusiast
I recognize the importance of land
conservation and the necessity of
passing on my passion for the out
of doors to the next generation. It is
in that sense that I draw from
Abbey’s quote above. If my actions
as an instructor influence the
foundation for more defenders of
our wild lands, than I have
succeeded as an educator.
In reflecting on my own education
and development, I find that my
“The idea of Wilderness needs no defense, it only needs more
defenders.” – Edward Abbey
most memorable experiences, and
surely the most influential, were
those where my instructor involved
me in hands-on-learning with
immediate reflection. It is within
this guideline that I have strived to
structure my teaching style.
Teaching Evolution
When entering my internship at
TSS I spent the majority of my
teaching time learning behavioral
management and curriculum
development skills. OnceI became
more comfortable with these
critical teaching components I was
able to transition into more of a
leadership role, instructing half and
then eventually full days. Most
importantly though was the shift in
my approach to student
instruction. My teaching abilities
have been broadened here at TSS,
moving away from the
constrictions of lecture style
instruction and towards
experiential science education. I
have worked during this internship
to develop a relationship with my
students where their role in the
classroom is more as participants,
involved in active learning, and less
as recipients of long lectures.
Because of this transition, I prefer
to use teaching practices that keep
students highly engaged in the
action of science and select activity
based instruction which focuses on
the groups interests. This approach
allows students to get their hands
dirty and fully immerse themselves
in something much greater than the
content knowledge of the Greater
Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). This
instead focuses on important cross
cutting concepts like the scientific
method while building a passion
for the environment around them.
This passion will far out live the
content students learn about GYE
mammals and empower them to
pursue science literacy at a higher
education level.
“If my actions as an instructor influence the foundation for more
defenders of our wild lands, thanI havesucceeded as an educator.”

3. TaylorLuneau Fall, 2014
3
In any profession it is
vital to set goals to track ones
progression of skills and
competency. As a growing educator
this was especially true for myself.
Once my term of service began I set
SMART goals (specific, measurable,
attainable, realistic and timely) to
ensure that I was developing my
instruction skills.
Upon entering the TSS community,
it was clear that the educators
there had a new age philosophy on
how to promote scientific literacy. I
made it my goal from the start to
learn this methodology and
encapsulate it not only in my
teaching style but also in the
approach to furthering my own
education.
The following SMART goals were
regularly returned to during faculty
mentor meetings and direct
support was provided from field
instructors in order for me to
achieve these goals.
Build strong group and
behavioral management skills
and successfully incorporate
them in my field instruction.
This was of particular concern
upon my entrance into the science
schools. I had not worked with
younger students much and
initially felt that I was
spending a
disproportionate
amount of my time
managing student
behavior, rather than
focusing on the content
that I had designed for
the day. What I found
was that by setting a
high student
achievement expectation
and consciously holding
them to that expectation,
student proficiency increased.
Once I set this standard for
behavior and learned to not
succumb to ineffective thresholds
like warning systems, I began to
experience the ratio of behavior
management time to teaching time
to swing towards the latter. I
needed to change several things in
order to accomplish this such as
learning when to really praise a
student’s behavior or just
acknowledge it. Furthermore,
through the use of positive
framing and non-interventionist
behavior techniques, I found the
order in my classroom and field
groups to be at a level I had
previously doubted possible.
Build a curriculum that can
be used to independently
direct my own lessonswith
effective assessments.
Goals and teaching
development
“Upon entering the TSS community,it was
clear that the educators there had a new
age philosophyon how to promote
scientific literacy.I made it my goal from
the start to learn this methodologyand
encapsulate it not only in my teaching
style but also in the approach to furthering
my own education.”
Students examine macro-
invertebrate samples in the
Grand Teton National Park.

4. TaylorLuneau Fall, 2014
4
Continued
The traditional paradigm in
education can rely much to
heavily on textbook coverage,
forgoing activity based learning.
But to simply have only activities
for students with no thoughtful
reflection is an equally flawed
approach to curriculum design.
My hope was to learn how to
balance these two important
pieces of education and
incorporate them in a field week
with my students.
In approaching this goal I needed
to familiarize myself with the
spectrum of learning objectives
for the different age groups that
I’d be working with. Unlike a
traditional classroom
atmosphere, the field education
program at TSS is highly dynamic
and instructors are expected to
provide the best possible learning
experience to a wide variety of
ages that typically change weekly.
When considering how to create
the most exceptional learning
experience for varying age groups
I learned that reverse engineering
was a successful technique for
curriculum design. By starting
with what I wanted students to
learn, I could work backwards to
identify reasonable objectives
and then finally select
appropriate activities to achieve
those objectives.
I would find that selecting
reasonable objectives takes more
thoughtful consideration than I
initially assumed. Good objectives
must contain two critical
components; they must be
observable and measurable.
Furthermore, it was critical to
assess whether these objectives
incorporated the pillars, goals
and essential questions of TSS and
how they fit into the Next Generation
Science Standards.
Once I’ve considered what my
objectives for my lesson were, I can
then answer three questions to help
me design my days lesson:
1) What’s worthy and requiring of
knowing?
2) What is evidence of
understanding?
3) How to accomplish that
understanding?
From these three questions I learned
to refine my days plan and create a
curriculum that causes students to
be engaged and provides them with
a new set of tools and problem
solving capabilities. At this point it
was critical to re-visit the spectrum
of expectations for different age
groups and adjust to a reasonable
expectation of content and application.
This process of personalizing content to
the groups weaknesses, strengths and
interests each week empowered me as a
strong curriculum designer and
thoughtful educator.
What was important next for me was to
learn varying forms of effective
assessments to expose if my curriculum
and teaching methods were making a
positive impact on my students. My first
assessment came at the beginning of the
day which was strictly diagnostic in order
to gather background information on the
students. Several times I would begin a
day with high expectations of new
student knowledge and would find from
my diagnostic assessment that I needed
to adjust my plans to meet
learning challenges. It is because
of this that I learned a strong
curriculum must be flexible and
formatted for a wide variety of
learners.
I learned to then utilize formative
assessments in order to check in
through out the day and assure
myself that students were really
comprehending the information
that I was providing them with.
This would typically come in the
form of a cold call, think-pair-
share, journaling or calling for
raised hands. I found this form of
assessment to be difficult at first
due to wanting student
involvement from the entire class
and not just a few bright students.
I therefore had to be cognoscente
of the forms of on-going
assessment that I was utilizing
“Several times I would begin a day with high expectations of new
student knowledge and would find from my diagnostic assessment
that I needed to adjust my plans to meet learning challenges. It is
because of this that I learned a strong curriculum must be flexible and
formatted for a wide variety of learners.”
and diversify it through out the
day.
Summative assessments came
in several forms including skits,
exit tickets and presentations. I
found the exit tickets and
presentations, especially after
project based learning days, to
be the most effective. These
strategies required involvement
from all students and provided
the instructor with tangible
evidence of whether their
lesson had been a success in
passing on the content and
knowledge.

5. TaylorLuneau Fall, 2014
5
Understand the cross-cutting
concepts behind placed based
educationand thephilosophy
behind the TSS teaching
methodology.
The notion of place-based
education will be a concept that I
continue to explore and work to
understand my whole life. What
I’ve gathered about this
methodology from my time at TSS
is multi-faceted and complex but
the results are clear, it’s effective.
Connecting students to place
provides immediate feedback and a
clear, engaging means of involving
students in content based lessons.
However student development will
be stunted if they are only
presented with content and an
interesting environment. When
students are provided with explicit
and reflective instruction and
engaged in the environment
around them, the capacity of their
knowledge and comprehension is
tremendously increased.
While at TSS I’ve learned that their
strong teaching methodology
doesn’t stop with the utilization of
place based education, it is simply
one of the pillars that makes the
TSS teaching strategy so effective.
As can be seen in Figure 1, other
important pillars to the TSS
teaching methodology include:
 The Nature of Science, where
explicit and reflective instruction
on the scientific mindset is
provided
 Stewardship where students are
taught responsible action to
preserve ecological and cultural
legacy
 Educating for sustainability
where students learn
intentionality and the value of
their actions
At the junction of each of these
pillars are cross cutting concepts
that require both pillars to be
taught effectively. Finally, TSS is
found at the nucleus of these
methods and concepts, providing
the energy for this approach to
education.
Continued
“When students are
provided with
explicit and
reflective
instruction and
engaged in the
environment
around them, the
capacity of their
knowledge and
comprehension is
tremendously
increased.”
Figure1. Diagram of components in TSS teaching methodology

6. TaylorLuneau Fall, 2014
6
Instructor Feedback
Allison Waring, TSS Lead Field Instructor
 “You have a really great tone of voice and way of speaking to students, and used a great
combination of positive reinforcement and appropriate discipline/behavior reminders throughout
the night.”
 “You did really well adapting to student needs and abilities. This was a tough group of students to
control using traditional management techniques and you did a really great job at not getting
frustrated and being able to try different techniques.”
o “It was great to see you trying to implement some techniques we had talked about the
week before such as using quiet wait time to get their attention or “I’m waiting for two
people”.”
 “The activities you chose to do with the students were very appropriate for their ages and attention
spans.”
“I could see you adapting your plan and adapting your energy levels to those of the students. You are also
great at accepting and implementing feedback. I could actively see you implementing feedback from last
week. It’s clear that you are motivated at becoming a better teacher.” - Allison Waring
Elle Emory, TSS Lead Field Instructor
 “Taylor is really thoughtful and
organized in his planning and
preparation for a program. Taylor
took the time to get to know
students and to determine where
to meet the students in their
development. Taylor taught lessons
that were well planned and flowed
well with the day. Taylor shares his
ideas and concerns with his co-
instructor with confidence and has
great instincts for a collaborative
teaching team.”

7. TaylorLuneau Fall, 2014
7
Developing leadership in science education
through the Murie Legacy.
"I hope the United States of America is not so rich that she can afford to let
these wildernesses pass by, or so poor she cannot afford to keep them."
-Margret Murie
Scientific literacy and
leadership development
While completing my
service term with the
Teton Science Schools, one
of my tasks was to
undertake a capacity
building project for the
school. In cooperation with
one other AmeriCorps
intern and the guidance of
faculty members Colby
Mitchell and Patrick Leary,
I approached solving the
question of how to develop
curriculum that entails
leadership in the context of
science.
At the onset of this project,
it was typical practice to
teach leadership principles
in means often entirely
separate from scientific
literacy. Tools such as the
low ropes course were
utilized but not framed to
students within a scientific
context. Reflection of these
activities was focused chiefly
on the leadership skills
necessary to complete the task.
It was thusly our goal to re-
integrate the two ideas,
merging leadership principles
with the nature of science and
create a framework for future
instructors of TSS to utilize.
In order to accomplish this goal
we felt it appropriate to utilize
a contemporary narrative, one
connected to the Greater
Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE),
which would be overlaid on a
series of tasks that combined
both leadership skills and
scientific content to complete.
With this approach we chose to
utilize the legacy of Olaus and
Mardy Murie to convey a direct
example of leadership in
science. From this point we
developed clear objectives for
our project that would
help us meet our goals.
They included:
1) Create a modular
curriculum for a TSS field
day that provided future
instructors with the tools
to teach leadership in
science content.
2) Identify and define clear
leadership principles
currently utilized by TSS
and those that are outlined
within the context of the
Murie legacy.
3) Develop a new
framework and
powerpoint presentation
for an evening program
introducing students to the
GYE.
4) Provide future
instructors with
professional development
material pertaining to the

8. TaylorLuneau Fall, 2014
8
Continued
Muries and important
leadership principles.
EveningProgram
Development
With these objectives in mind,
we visited the Murie center, a
national historic landmark
and education facility, in the
Grand Teton National Park to
meet with the Docent. Our
trip resulted in accruing a
vast amount of information
about the Muries and their life
story. Dan the Docent, was an
incredible guide and I would
highly encourage the
utilization of this resource to
TSS in the future. The
students of TSS could really
benefit from visiting this
inspirational and culturally
significant place.
Leaving the Murie Center we
had developed a new sense
for the historical and social
context of the national park
and the significant impacts
the Muries had on the
preservation of this area.
When the Muries moved to
Jackson Hole, they were
enlisted to help solve the
crisis of the massive Elk die-
offs that were occurring.
Olaus, a wildlife biologist with
an extensive background in
Elk research, helped to solve
the issue causing the Elk crisis
and put in place measures to
preserve Elk for generations
to come.
We chose to utilize this story
as a means to frame the TSS
Introduction to the GYE
evening program. After
creating a new powerpoint to
be utilized with this framework
my partner and I put our plans
into action, each teaching the
lesson. What we found were
students grasped a thorough
understanding of what it meant
to be a good scientist and
furthermore came to
understand the natural
communities of the GYE within
the context of a visiting
scientist. The success of our
curriculum led us to begin our
development of an outline for a
whole field day.
Identifying leadership
principles
For us to successfully integrate
leadership within the context
of science education we needed
to first outline what leadership
principles were currently in
use at TSS and where overlaps
of these principles could be
found in the Murie story. We
located a document that
outlined seven critical
leadership principles and
assessed where, if at all, those
key principles could be
outlined in the Murie legacy.
What we found was each
founding leadership principle
could be identified, with clear
examples in the Murie’s story.
We thusly added to this
original document, re-stating
the leadership principle and
outlining where it was utilized
by Olaus or Mardy Murie
during their work to preserve
the Grand Teton National Park,
save the Elk or during other
preservation efforts.
Field day curriculum
Now having outlined the
principles of leadership
that we wanted to teach
students and furthermore
outlining where those
principles could be found in
the greater Murie story, we
needed to complete our
final task and weave this
information into the fabric
of a typical field education
day. Our goal was to
reconstruct a common field
day so that our work would
be most useful for future
instructors.
We selected an Animal
adaptations theme for our
day and opted to focus our
content on 7th and 8th grade
students. Our objectives for
the day were to have
students be able to identify
the seven leadership
principles, define what
adaptations are and
provide examples for how
physical and behavioral
adaptations differ.
Utilizing our overlay of the
Murie legacy we created a
curriculum that
encapsulated both
leadership principles and
the nature of science.
Activities focused on
teaching leadership skills
while also discussing
varying animal adaptations
and concluded with
students completing an
experiment to identify the
biological health of two
natural communities. This
concluding activity
empowered students as
scientists and required
reflection on all content

9. TaylorLuneau Fall, 2014
9
Children’s Learning Center
Hoop House
The Children’s Learning
Center (CLC), a pre-school
for ages 0-5, has been slowly
building a hoop house on
their grounds to provide
their young students the
opportunity to learn via
gardening. As an outside TSS
service project, two
AmeriCorps peers and I
chose to work with the CLC
to help them finish their
hoop house.
Pre-school students are
active learners who
experience the world
through their senses and
hands-on involvement. The
implementation of gardening
in pre-school curriculum is,
for this reason, an easily
supported decision.
Gardening curriculum provides
students with a strong
understanding and connection
to place. The immediate
reflection and tactile activities
of gardening offer a wide variety
of teachable moments for
children.
Our team helped the CLC to
finish the construction of their
hoop house, adding the final
touches to the structure,
applying the plastic to the
greenhouse, filling the raised
beds with soil and prepping the
work space. Our goals were
recognized when the Teton
Botanical Garden brought some
local high school students to the
hoop house as a small service
project to plant some vegetables
in the raised beds that we had
finished prepping earlier that
week.
We would later develop
gardening based curriculum for
pre-school teachers to utilize
with their classes. Activities
focused on involving students in
planting, watering and all
matters of exploration and
getting their hands dirty in the
hoop house.
Lastly we designed a newsletter
for the CLC to share their new
accomplishment with the entire
school community. Our hope
was to see this resource
continue to develop and be a
vibrant school resource,
providing food for the schools
cafeteria and a direct link to
food and natural systems for
students.
Students of the CLC help
AmeriCorps partners and myself
prepare their school hoop house
for planting in their raised beds.
“Gardeningcurriculum
providesstudents
with a strong
understandingand
connection to place.
The immediate
reflection and tactile
activities of gardening
offer a wide array of
teachable moments
for children.”

10. TaylorLuneau Fall, 2014
10
Idaho Outreach Trip
“Workingthroughthe processof
teachinga lessonmultiple times,
refining it,customizing it to class
type andage andfitting large
volumes ofcontent into a short
periodoftimewas a great
exercise in curriculumdesign,
time management andeffective
communicationstrategies.”
Once the field education season had ended at TSS it was
time for the AmeriCorps cohort to embark on their
seasonal outreach trip. My team and I traveled to six
different schools over the course of the week and taught
seven hour long lessons with themes ranging from: the
scientific method, animal ecology, ecosystem ecology
and water quality assessment. Class ages varied from 1st
to 8th grade crossing many different socio-economic and
educational backgrounds.
Due to only having an hour to teach the desired content,
my team and I needed to craft curriculum that was both
interactive but timely. We utilized activities that we
learned in our field instruction at TSS and manipulated
them to fit our goals with the class. After teaching a
lesson we often had long reflective conversations within
our teaching pairs or groups considering what worked
well and what could be improved upon. Working
through the process of teaching a lesson multiple times,
refining it, customizing it to class type and age and
Conducting stream analysis tests provides a fun and
interactive means for students to grasp a greater
understanding of their environment and furthermore the
nature of science.
fitting large volumes of content into
a short period of time was a great
exercise in curriculum design, time
management and effective
communication strategies.
Perhaps one of the biggest lessons
from this trip was discovering that
there are a lot of schools with
limited resources and the
opportunities that TSS offers its
students is truly a unique and
special opportunity.

11. AmeriCorps Portfolio November 14, 2014
Transference
My time at the Teton Science Schools has
empowered me as an educator, a leader, a strong
member of a community and reflective and
thoughtful member of society. Working with a
wide variety of students I have learned
varying management and curriculum
design techniques that will allow me to
work in dynamic environments.
Furthermore, having worked with such a
wide variety of age groups, I have really
refined my communication skills and am
more capable of relating to students in a
meaningful way. Not only do I understand
more about how to teach a wide variety of
learners now but I understand more about
the kind of learner I am and what strategies
are most effective in my own education.
My teaching time at TSS has exposed me to life as an educator and the
pleasures of teaching. As I move on and depart from TSS I will bring the
skills that I learned here with me and look to apply placed based
education and hands-on, immersive curriculum in other teaching
opportunities. I hope to
gather higher education
and then return to
teaching with older
students. However in
the mean time, along
with my new
accumulation of
pedagogical skills, I’ve
developed networking,
teamwork and risk
management skills
along with simply being
a more confident
individual when placed
in un-familiar territory.
I hope to spread the
values of stewardship
and intentional living
that I have learned at
TSS in the other
communities and
continue to develop as a
defender of our wild
lands and an
environmental
educator.