Eagle Rock Teacher In Arizona For Earthwatch

A fifth-grade teacher at the who had been threatened with a pink slip for three years left Thursday on an 11-day expedition with the Earthwatch Institute, the world’s largest environmental nonprofit volunteer organization dedicated to worldwide scientific research and awareness about environmental sustainability.

Alicia Stanco, one of the school’s most well-regarded teachers in its popular gifted magnet program, told Eagle Rock Patch she will study climate change and caterpillars in Arizona—and that she expects to return to her native Eagle Rock with yet more experience in the expanding field of environmental literacy.

Until just a month ago, Stanco was on the LAUSD’s list of teachers targeted for a district-wide, budget-augmenting “reduction in force.” On July 6, she learned from a letter she received from the LAUSD that her layoff had been rescinded, said Stanco.

The very next day, she got news that Earthwatch, based in Metro Boston, had chosen her from among 400 applicants for a research fellowship in the Chiricahua mountain range outside Tucson, AZ, where she will conduct conservation field work aimed at helping scientists better understand the food habits of caterpillars as well as any dangers to them from parasites. Read more about expedition here.

Magnet teachers such as Stanco are widely respected by colleagues and community members alike for helping with the high academic achievements of their students. In one of many examples, Stanco helped her students win a “gold star” in the annual Science Olympiad held at Occidental College last February—a prestigious event in which some 100 public and private schools participated.

Environmental issues have always been dear to Stanco—she returned July 18 from a camping trip to Yellowstone National Park—who is excited about her expedition to Arizona.

“There are lots of components to what Earthwatch considers environmental literacy because [the organization] takes a more holistic view of earth science,” Stanco said, explaining what she expects to share with the Eagle Rock community after she returns home on August 14.

As the Eagle Rock Elementary faculty person in charge of the school’s garden, Stanco said she hopes to “incorporate what I learn during the conservation project in the project.”

She will “either have kids monitoring urban wildlife such as bees and insects in the school garden” or have them study some other aspect of gardening, such as composting, said Stanco, adding that she hasn’t quite decided which of the two projects she will end up choosing for the fall quarter.

“I am interested in food waste and how much waste ends up in landfills,” she said. “Environmental literacy also looks at how we use our resources, and by constantly putting things in the dump we are losing resources.”