A Skype chat with Bill McKibben, world renown environmental writer, journalist and founder of 350.org , launched our new special speaker series, TLTalks on Friday March 6, to compliment, enrich, and inspire learning at Terra Linda High School (TL). Mr. David Tow, English and Journalism teacher at TL, reached out to Academic Excellence@TL to find a journalist to speak to his class to provide more enriched learning for his journalist students, and Mr. Madsen's environmental studies class was invited when we confirmed Bill's talk! In addition to the unique knowledge and insight into journalism and climate change and environmental advocacy, the Skype chat offered extended enrichment to these wonderfully eager students as they were extremely well-prepared spending class time : researching his writing and articles on the environment; and also McKibben's book, Earth is a text for the Junior SEL Class. Also, it was great to see faculty and students working together to prepare for the special Skype chat: assisting with special technology, room set-up in the library, and even having students run the video cameras. The students and teachers were extremely appreciative of this unique opportunity and expressed their thanks thanks with a huge round of applause for Bill McKibben and AE@TL! A Senior journalism student approached the AE@TL team after the event to personally thank us and express that it was one of the best experiences at TL! Hats-off to Mr. Tow and Mr. Madsen for leading the discussion and a wonderful Q & A session! They could both have careers in broadcast!
