Joan Gillman: Championing Environmental Awareness in Education

Teaching is a profound art that goes beyond delivering information; it fosters a love for learning and critical thinking, especially in science education. Science educators play a crucial role in bridging the gap between abstract concepts and tangible experiences, empowering students to understand the natural world and encouraging them to ask questions. Their work cultivates curiosity and promotes scientific literacy, which is essential in today’s society. By implementing hands-on experiments and adapting to diverse learning styles, they inspire students to see themselves as future scientists and informed citizens.

Joan Gillman is a prominent science teacher at The Browning School, where she helps her students understand and care for the environment. She believes that education can change lives, so she includes lessons about climate issues in her teaching. Joan encourages her students to be kind and work together. One of her creative projects, The Green Team, helps students learn about and tackle important environmental problems. Through her efforts, Joan inspires young people to take action for the planet’s future.

The Journey and Impact as an Educator

Joan Gillman developed an interest in teaching during high school through a community service program. She volunteered in the lower school, teaching elementary students how to play the recorder, tutoring them in math, and organizing playground games. The head of the school praised her inclusive approach, ensuring that all children participated, regardless of their athletic abilities. Joan also taught swimming at the local JCC, including special needs children, and served as a substitute ballet teacher.

“It was a great feeling to be able to help the children become less afraid of the water and more confident in their skills,” Joan says.

Her commitment to inclusiveness shapes her teaching philosophy. She believes in giving every child a chance to shine, emphasizing the importance of compassion, dignity, and respect in social interactions. Joan believes that limiting friendships to only the strongest athletes prevents children from experiencing the joy of witnessing their peers succeed in various tasks.

From a young age, Joan displayed a strong interest in science and engineering, conducting experiments and measuring weather patterns. Collaborating with her older brother on creative projects, they built robots and model cities, which helped her develop essential skills.

“Little did I realize that the skills I was developing as a youngster would serve me well once I became an educator,” she says.

The Mission to Empower Young Minds

Teaching Students About Climate Change with Hope

One of the biggest challenges in education today is teaching students about climate change without scaring them. Children need to understand how the world works so they can make smart choices as adults and help bring about positive changes. Without the right knowledge, students may not be prepared for the challenges they will face in the future. As a leader of The Green Team, Joan aims to empower her students to make small changes in their community that can have a big impact.

Each week, the students choose a “Green Action of the Week.” These actions can include simple tasks like turning off the lights when leaving a room, using both sides of a piece of paper, recycling properly, and avoiding breaking pencils in half. The students create signs to post around the school, reminding everyone—students and teachers alike—to do their part for the environment. Additionally, Green Team leaders discuss environmental topics with their homerooms and advisories, and some even present information during school assemblies. This way, they spread awareness and encourage everyone to participate in caring for the planet.

Impactful First Year of Teaching

When Joan began her full-time teaching career in the South Bronx, she had just graduated from college and was eager to make a difference. The fifth-grade students she would teach seemed only slightly younger than her. To her surprise, the first question they asked was, “Are you staying for the whole year?” Joan Gillman assured them that she planned to stay. The class posed a challenge, as it included children aged 10 to 13 with reading levels ranging from second to tenth grade. 

However, she was determined to show her students that she genuinely cared for them and was committed to their success. She established six different reading levels to help each student reach their full potential and worked on a classroom management system that was fair and consistent. Reflecting on her first year, Joan said, “This first full year was certainly a learning experience for me, but I feel it prepared me for the years to come when I would be working with multiple grade levels.”

Today, she continues to improve her classroom management to best fit her current classes. She believes that starting each class consistently is vital for setting the right tone. When her middle school students enter her science lab, they immediately see the homework and class schedule posted. A 5-minute timer runs on the SmartBoard, signaling them to record their homework in their planners and be ready to start the lesson. This routine works well; many students compete to be “first on the pedestal,” meaning they are the quickest to write down their homework and show they are ready to begin.

Commitment to Evolving Teaching Practices

Joan Gillman values lifelong learning and actively participates in professional development throughout her career. She has taken three courses at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Agency in Maryland, nurturing her passion for astronomy and even witnessing the construction of the James Webb Telescope. Moreover, she has attended workshops at the American Museum of Natural History on topics like paleontology and climate change, as well as courses at the Cornell Ornithology Lab. In 2017, she was one of 12 teachers selected for the GLOBE Weather Field Test Program in Colorado, where she tested a new weather curriculum for her sixth-grade classes.

In 2018, Joan pursued National Geographic Certified Educator status and later completed a grant-funded course to become a Modern Classroom Project educator in 2022, which helped her create a self-paced classroom. With 43 years of teaching experience, she continually updates her curriculum to stay relevant.

As a female educator, Joan has led workshops at various conferences, including NSTA and STANYS, and enjoys sharing her innovative teaching methods. Last year, she helped plan the SCONYC conference and presented two workshops at the NSTA Conference in New Orleans, one of which was based on her National Geographic curriculum. Joan finds great fulfillment in inspiring fellow educators to embrace science education.

The Approach to Engaging Students

Joan Gillman believes in hands-on learning and interdisciplinary curricula, recognizing young students’ natural curiosity about the world. In her Fourth Grade Straw Rocket unit, she engages students by challenging them to create rockets that can fly the maximum distance. They experiment with variables such as straw length, fin design, clay nose cone size, and launch angles. This project allows students to apply math and science skills as they measure and record their rockets’ characteristics, including mass, before launching them outdoors.

After launching, students analyze their results to determine the optimal launch angle, straw length, nose cone size, and fin design. With this new knowledge, they redesign their rockets for improved performance, creating a memorable and impactful learning experience.

Additionally, at The Browning School, Joan Gillman developed a unit on “Hurricane Relief and Environmental Racism” for her sixth-grade science students. They evaluated the mission statements of three relief organizations and assessed their effectiveness in providing aid after hurricanes. Students proposed solutions to address identified biases. Through this challenging topic, Joan successfully guided students to understand and propose relevant ideas to combat injustices, reinforcing the importance of equity and diversity in education.

The Project-Based Learning Revolution

Joan strongly advocates for project-based learning in her teaching approach. At the start of each science unit, she engages her students with original raps, unique phenomena, or storytelling, creating excitement around the topic. This approach provides a positive learning environment, encouraging students to participate actively. Instead of rote memorization, students showcase their understanding through creative projects such as slideshows, videos, dioramas, and posters, allowing them to choose the medium that suits their learning style and enhancing information retention.

As a science teacher and leader of the school’s Green Team, Joan Gillman inspires her students to positively impact the world. One lesson on water shortages motivated a student to join the Green Team, which partnered with water.org to raise over $1,000 for clean water access. Joan also encourages community-based projects, such as clean-up efforts in Central Park, helping students learn about environmental preservation while developing leadership skills.

In her second-grade engineering unit, students design skyscrapers and bridges. Through a creative project called “the elephant project,” they must construct a bridge that supports the weight of two adult elephants and one baby elephant using recycled materials. This hands-on learning experience promotes creativity, teamwork, and a meaningful educational impact.

Role as a Positive Educator

Joan strives to be a positive role model for her students, emphasizing honesty and the belief that they can achieve their goals. She instills the importance of lifelong learning by continuously taking professional development courses throughout her career. With an interdisciplinary curriculum, Joan ensures that her science classes integrate skills from other academic subjects as well. This approach helps students see the connections between disciplines and reinforces the idea that learning occurs holistically.

She has often observed that many schools adopt a “one size fits all” approach to education, which is ineffective. Just as clothing cannot fit everyone equally, neither can teaching methods. Each child comes with unique needs, and it is the teacher’s responsibility to find the right strategies to help every student reach their academic goals. Joan is dedicated to ensuring that each student in her care feels comfortable and confident in their ability to learn the material covered in class. By creating a supportive and inclusive learning environment, she helps her students thrive academically and personally.

Challenges and Technological Transformation in Teaching

One of the biggest challenges Joan Gillman has faced as an educator is keeping up with new technologies. When she began teaching in 1982, she relied on a blackboard and chalk, unaware of the significant impact technology would have on her career. She recalls the first time a computer was placed in her classroom, where she struggled to find the switch to turn it on. Today, she cannot imagine teaching without technological tools. Each classroom at The Browning School is equipped with a SmartBoard, which she finds invaluable for displaying videos, slideshows, and class notes in a way that helps students track information easily.

In addition to SmartBoards, each student receives a Chromebook for the school year, allowing them to take notes, watch videos, and collaborate on assignments. Joan teaches across multiple divisions, using four different online platforms: Seesaw for younger students, Google Classroom for older lower-school students, Toddle for fifth graders, and Canvas for sixth graders. This year, she is learning Toddle with her fifth-grade students, and if successful, it may be expanded to other grades.

Joan Gillman also stays current with the latest science information by actively participating in organizations like NSTA, STANYS, SCONY, and SEEDS, serving as a Subject Area Representative for STANYS at the elementary level in New York City for many years.

Nurturing Leadership Through Environmental Action

“To nurture leadership qualities in young students, you must encourage them to develop compassion for living things and a passion to be a positive changemaker,” Joan says. 

As the advisor for the Green Team, Joan Gillman knows that the challenges facing the environment are significant, but she looks for small ways for the students to make a difference at The Browning School and in the city. Each week, they post signs for the “Green Action of the Week,” which promotes different eco-friendly actions that everyone can follow to help the environment. They also organize park cleanups in Central Park, and it’s impressive to see how many students come out on Monday at 7:30 AM to help with this effort.

The team plans challenges for Biodiversity Week, invites guest speakers to teach them more about the environment, and holds fundraisers to raise money for hurricane relief, environmental causes, and other related issues. Through these activities, Joan helps students learn the importance of taking care of the planet and encourages them to actively participate in positive change.

Advice For Fellow Educators

“As an educator, it is vitally important to continue attending professional development opportunities,” Joan says.

Since Joan started teaching 43 years ago, so much has changed. She believes her long career is due to her willingness to embrace new techniques and ideas gained from workshops, courses, and science conferences. This commitment has helped her stay excited about her job and allowed her to connect with other educators, gaining fresh perspectives and ideas to bring back to her classroom. Joan Gillman also advises teachers to maintain a sense of humor. 

“Some days can be more challenging with students, but if you keep your sense of humor and remain patient, you can overcome these difficulties and continue to enjoy teaching,” she says.

Lastly, she encourages educators not to hesitate to ask for help. Schools are filled with professional educators who can offer valuable advice and strategies. Teaching can be a tough and exhausting career, but it is also one of the most rewarding. Joan reminds everyone to stay positive because the best days are still ahead.

Key Takeaways from Joan Gillman’s Professional Journey

1. Joan Gillman is a dedicated teacher who inspires students to love science and care for the environment. She uses creative projects and hands-on activities to make learning fun and engaging.

2. Joan believes education can change the world. She integrates climate change issues into her lessons and leads The Green Team, a student group focused on environmental action.

3. Joan is committed to staying up-to-date on the latest science information and teaching methods. She actively participates in professional development and embraces new technologies in her classroom.

4. Joan creates a positive learning environment where every student feels valued. She uses different teaching styles to cater to diverse learners and encourages students to develop leadership qualities.

5. Joan believes in providing student agency. She encourages her students to take action on environmental issues and participate in projects that benefit their community.

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