{"id":4634,"date":"2025-10-16T20:37:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T20:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/4634\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T20:37:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T20:37:06","slug":"philadelphia-teacher-teaches-students-how-geography-shapes-their-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/4634\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia teacher teaches students how geography shapes their lives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia\u2019s free newsletter<\/a> to keep up with news on the city\u2019s public school system.<\/p>\n

High school educator Anna Herman is a self-described \u201cfood person.\u201d But her interests and expertise extend well beyond the plate. <\/p>\n

As an urban agriculture, food, and natural resources teacher at The U School in North Philadelphia, Herman asks her students to research soil health and study the connection between the land, water, and the sociopolitical systems that contribute to their lives and diets.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about understanding the cycles of nature. It\u2019s about understanding how to have access to more fresh, healthy food,\u201d Herman said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to give kids exposure to things and then tangible career pathways within those things, so that there\u2019s a sustainability throughline within that work.\u201d <\/p>\n

This year, Herman was selected to create a new curriculum unit through Yale University\u2019s National Initiative program<\/a>, which pairs public school educators with Yale faculty to \u201cstrengthen teachers\u2019 content knowledge,\u201d according to the program description. <\/p>\n

Herman\u2019s unit is called \u201cMapping the Future.\u201d<\/a> It combines analog and digital resources \u2014 think clay and paper as well as drones and Geographic Information Systems software \u2014 to map everything from Philadelphia\u2019s topography to the indigenous histories of the Lenape people as they navigated displacement and environmental changes.<\/p>\n

Herman wants her students to \u201cexcavate stories\u201d about our land and geography and understand \u201cthe connections between how food grows, how energy is used in the food system, and how food companies use cognitive science to sell you ultra high processed foods\u201d among other issues. <\/p>\n

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n

How and when did you decide to become a teacher?<\/p>\n

Before this, I ran an out-of-school time urban agriculture entrepreneurship program at Awbury Arboretum called Teen Leadership Corps. I was doing that, and I was an urban garden educator at Penn State Extension. I ran the Master Gardener program for six years. And before that, I was in the industry. I was a food business consultant and entrepreneur. I was a chef, and a caterer, and I worked in restaurants.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t go to graduate school, I saved up a chunk of money and I traveled. What I learned when I traveled is that every culture that has great cuisine, it\u2019s really about the connection between the crops that are grown, or the cheese that they make, the wine \u2014 whatever it is, it\u2019s very much place-based. So I became interested in gardening from that. I was always a food person. I became a garden person and a garden educator because I wanted good ingredients.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t quite understand those connections initially, that good cooking comes from good ingredients, good ingredients comes from good farms. Good farms come from good soil. Good soil comes from taking care of the cycles [of nature] so I became an environmentalist, sort of through the back door of food. And then I really became an environmental educator probably when I had kids.<\/p>\n

This is my capstone career. I came to teaching in my late 50s with a lot of experience in food, agriculture, and natural resources and so this program was a natural thing for me.<\/p>\n

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Every day, Chalkbeat Philadelphia reporters are answering your questions, following the money, and digging into what’s happening in the city’s public schools. Keep up with our free newsletter, delivered every Wednesday and Friday morning.<\/p>\n

What does your work look like in a classroom setting?<\/p>\n

We do a boatload of food growing indoors and out. We do some food processing, we do a lot of field trips and work with partners. Our major focus is green career exploration. So it\u2019s thinking about whatever interest you have, there is some way of thinking about that in a more sustainable way. If you\u2019re interested in construction, it\u2019s understanding the material supply chain in the construction field. It\u2019s understanding energy. We do a lot of trips, we have a lot of really fantastic partners who take kids out in the field.<\/p>\n

In our classroom, we\u2019re telling sustainability stories around Philadelphia, place-based stories using tools from National Geographic\u2019s 2892 Miles To Go education program<\/a>, like these powerful GIS tools that [students] could use to do place-based storytelling projects. \u2026 We had all these resources. We had all these workshops. It was a really fantastic experience. <\/p>\n

I realized one of the things that was missing for me and for [students] was a deeper understanding of how to use how to use maps, how maps can be part of the storytelling, but also how they can help you understand the environment, how they can help you understand history, how they can help you tell stories, and how they can help you learn content.<\/p>\n

And how does that tie into your \u2018Mapping the Future\u2019 unit?<\/p>\n

This mapping unit very much starts with what this geographic area was like before humans. It imagines ecological time. And then it goes into what it looked like when the Lenni Lenape were here. And you can see the neighborhoods, you can see Wingohocking [Creek]. You can see Manayunk, which meant \u2018the place where we drink,\u2019 and this is the place where we got clams, and all these names that kids will recognize. And then we use 3D printing to make the shape of Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

I have a lot of hands-on opportunities to learn the shape and the geography and the geology of Philly, and then how it specifically relates to watershed issues, environmental issues, where were factories located in the \u201950s that now are creating lead issues in the soil? Where\u2019s the water flowing from here to there?<\/p>\n

One of our partners brought in a map, literally the size of our gym, that the kids could walk around on and look at the river. They could walk from Schuylkill County down to Philadelphia. And then in Philadelphia to see where the water actually flows. <\/p>\n

Students don\u2019t quite understand that we drink the river. If we throw our trash in the street, it ends up in the drinking water, and we have to pay to clean it up. And so we\u2019re trying to make all these very tangible connections in a place-based way.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re trying to combine data collection, data visualization, with how you communicate about issues, and how you advocate for things.<\/p>\n

How do challenges going on in Philly communities impact your lesson planning?<\/p>\n

Every year I poll students and have a process for excavating what things matter to them. It\u2019s almost always gun violence, the opioid crisis, and trash. Those are the three things that they notice that they really want to change.<\/p>\n

Our first unit of the year is very much about viewing the city through the lens of those issues. It turns out there\u2019s a lot of really interesting research about how greening and cleaning impacts gun violence and various public health measures.<\/p>\n

They find that out for themselves, and then they are very excited to actually [act on it] they\u2019re like, \u2018oh miss, we should go out and clean the yard, because people have been throwing stuff around.\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018that\u2019s a great idea. There\u2019s 12 brooms and four pairs of gloves over there. Go ahead.\u2019 The idea is for them to come up with these solutions.<\/p>\n

I have a huge back burner of ideas and projects that we could work on and whatever things kids in this particular cohort are interested in we pull up for the front burner.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s something you\u2019ve read that\u2019s made you a better educator?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Omnivore\u2019s Dilemma\u201d<\/a> and \u201cBraiding Sweetgrass\u201d<\/a> were two books that really were influential in terms of reminding myself how connected everything is and how important it all is.<\/p>\n

I am a big reader, and I think that speculative fiction<\/a>, sort of imagining the future and imagining this place in the future\u2014you can\u2019t push towards change without having an idea of what the future is going to be like. I do a lot with the \u201cParable of the Sower\u201d and \u201cParable of the Talents\u201d [by Octavia E. Butler].<\/p>\n

Ezra Klein\u2019s new book called \u201cAbundance\u201d is also pretty special. Just in terms of the political realities.<\/p>\n

In a couple of my units I do flash fiction and ask students to just quick-write: What do you imagine it would be like if we don\u2019t make changes? And if we do make changes? Imagine from the perspective of a kid waking up in North Philly looking out the window, what do they see? What do they smell?<\/p>\n

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia\u2019s free newsletter to keep up with news on the city\u2019s public school system.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4240,4239,69,71,70,4238],"class_list":{"0":"post-4634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-environmental-education","9":"tag-gardens","10":"tag-philadelphia","11":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","12":"tag-philadelphia-news","13":"tag-u-school"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}