Weathering the Storm: Science, Service, and the Shell Award

 In this episode, recorded live at the NSTA conference in Anaheim, hosts Andrew Kuhn and Patrice Semicek sit down with Erica Carter, a middle school science teacher from Louisiana whose path to the classroom was anything but traditional. From 11 years in a hospital microbiology lab to an alt-cert entry into teaching — right in the wake of COVID — Erica shares how life experience shaped her into a uniquely compelling educator. She opens up about living through Hurricane Ida, the disruption it caused for her school and community, and how her story ultimately became part of a winning application for the Shell Science Lab Challenge. A testament to resilience, resourcefulness, and what happens when you just try. 

Transcript

Andrew 0:00

Here we are, day two, live in Anaheim. Uh-huh. With the crowds working their way in. This has been a full day yesterday. Looking forward to a exciting day today at the NSDA conference. We are here with an educator who is implementing all things next generation science standards and has been working closely with NG and has been working closely with NSCA. We'd like to welcome Erica Carter to the show. Welcome, Erica.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Hi. Thanks for being here.

Andrew 0:41

You're welcome. Can you can you help the NSTA voices audience know who is Erica Carter? Tell us a little bit about your background and your experience as an educator.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Well, I started off working in a hospital lab. I wasn't a teacher first. I was actually more a non-traditional educator. So I did that for 11 years and then I got tired of shift work because I had a kid, and that was hard. So I decided to go back to school. So I'm actually considered Alt Cert, which is, you know, a little bit different. So I actually taught in the classroom for a little while before I was even certified.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

And I started off in high school biology. Oh, I'm sorry. No, I was just gonna ask, what is an alt cert? I don't we don't have that in Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

So alt cert basically is just I already have a degree in biology because I got a biology degree. This is my first degree. And so highly qualified, but not certified as I was at that time. So they'll they literally in Louisiana, they're like, okay, come on in and let you in the classroom. And that like, so basically, I think I had taken like maybe two classes and then I got a job teaching, and they're like, All right, come on, let's go. Little on-the-job training. Pretty much, and it was the year after the COVID stuff. So, like, yeah, that was an interesting year to start. Yeah, it was still easy, yeah. So we even had a late start that year. So I did more of a like a non-traditional, I guess, even that way. I started off teaching high school biology and I did that for two years, and then we had Hurricane Ida, and then my position got cut because I was still a baby teacher that wasn't certified yet. So, you know, those are usually the first to go. And then I wound up in the middle school, and that's where I've lived for the last four years teaching uh middle school science.

Andrew 2:25

You know, it's interesting as you talked about the alt cert, is that yesterday we had talked to two individuals who are very big on advocacy for NSCA, but just education in general. And it sounds like that, you know, each state has kind of their own alternative to how they're trying to address the teacher shortage and how they're trying to encourage people to come in. And it sounds like this is the science aspect is kind of in line with where you were thinking you would be, right? Like you you knew you'd be in science.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Yeah, definitely. I mean, that was always my thing, you know. So I knew that I wanted to be a science teacher. Like that was a no-brainer because that was what I was interested in anyway. But I guess it kind of turned out a little bit different than what I had thought. It wasn't quite what I expected, but still.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

I think I think your out of the classroom experience probably helps shape your in-classroom experience a little bit differently than those of us that started teaching at 22, right? Like you have, you know, experience in a field that is medically related, right? You're doing some of the life sciences and the biology and maybe even chemistry, depending on like what your lab work was. And you're gonna apply or give kids an opportunity to hear from you firsthand what it's actually like in the field. Um like definitely. I'm a lifelong educator. I started teaching in a preschool at 16. So wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Yeah. Now it was always gonna be something in STEM. Like, you know, I I started in marine biology and then that didn't quite work out. Fisher friends, that's great. It kind of led me into this, you know, and I I think it's a lot of like in my thinking when I talk to kids about careers. I always tell them, hey, you need to really figure out if there's a marketable job in this. Because I think with my experience, because I came out of college and I was like, oh yeah, I've got a college degree, I'm gonna get a job, and it didn't work out that way. And I had to pivot towards something else. So still in STEM, but obviously not fish. We turned to humans because I guess still I worked in a microbiology department for years, just reading cultures. But I mean, you know, kids probably don't know you can do that for a living, looking at like people's womb cultures and stuff from like sick people, because that's what I did. But then the hospital lab still has the blood bank, so you get to do like antibodies, antigens, cross-matching, all that good stuff. And then chemistry, like anytime they draw a tube of blood from you, you get a CBC. That's hematology, really, but still looking at blood cells under the microscope. And then like chemistry is like whenever they take draw that CMP or comprehensive metabolic panel, like that's where it goes. And then there's this huge instrument that does all these chemical reactions in these tiny little packets and gives all these numbers that come out on a report. And you know, that's like a world kids don't really see. And I think, you know, that's interesting that I can share that with them.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

And like not to mention the engineering that goes into all of the stuff that you're using to be able to do all of this stuff. So just in that field alone, there's tremendous amount of jobs. I like your point too about how finding a marketable job. A friend of mine was a communications major. I think that was a good one. Yeah. Or the other one, the other one my friend had a hard time with like she was like an English lit major. So like you're very limited in in jobs beyond that. It's true.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah. You know, I always tell them, I'm like, find what you love, but then find something that you know you can have a career in. Because if you just do what you love and then you get stuck, and then it's like you spend all this money because college is not cheap. And you spend all this money and then you can't even do anything with it.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

And it's not what we were told when we were growing up. Like our parents, you got a college degree and you are guaranteed a job. Like, there was no doubt about that. A college degree, you had a job. You get a college degree, you probably will get a job, just not in the field you choose. And now these poor kids that are coming up out of the system, you gotta have a master's before you're even considered for something. So it's kind of crazy and really hard for them. So, your point to like you gotta love it, but you also gotta be able to like survive.

Andrew 6:32

Right, right, definitely. One of the challenges I think that education had to deal with was that despite my youthful look, I went to college 20 years ago. And at that time they were more than 20 years.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Let's not let's not've been like hey, I'm knocking on that door too. I'm just saying actually, no, gosh, I did graduate from college 20 years ago. I graduated with my bachelor's degree in 2006. Oh my gosh. Yeah, sorry, I I am in that club, I am in that club.

Andrew 7:07

So when I was there, I went for elementary education and every single professor I had said they're gonna need you, we need you in education, you're gonna get a job overnight, like there's such a need. We need good people who are teaching. I'm like, great, okay, I'm all in. Like, I'm glad I take this profession. And when I graduated, that was not the case. There was still a lot of individuals who were there teaching. What I didn't realize is what they were trying to say is that in 20 years, when there's a pandemic, everyone who hasn't retired is gonna retire, and then we're gonna need a lot of teachers. Guess what? They were all like, I can't get a job. When I graduated, I ended up substituting right away. Like all of my friends are like, This is my last summer, I'm taking the summer off. And I'm like, I gotta get a job. So I took a job and then I started to sub right away. It became a building sub, and from that I got a job. I would say after the first year, only 10% of my graduating class had a job, and after the first like four years, only 25%. So the rest of them like left education. So there were these great educators who just couldn't get a job. And now, ironically, right, a lot of that generation, kind of that baby boom generation kind of moved out, and now there's this void. So it's encouraging a lot of ways to hear that states are trying to like loosen the reins a little bit and create pathways to get educators in because there is that need, and they have to be creative about trying to figure it out. So I think you're a great example of what that can look like a pathway into education for those that might not necessarily start there.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yeah, and it was a good program I went through because it was actually where I got my bachelor's degree. So they offer it as a master's program too. So not only did I get certified, but I got my master's in education at the same time. So I mean it, you know, because that was my thought. I'm like, I'm going back to school again, because this would be the third time because I had to go into a small program for the laboratory stuff, because you got to get certified in that too, technically. I'm licensed through the state. So it's almost kind of the same thing, just a different job, I guess you say that way. Got my master's at the same time, and I'm like, I'm never gonna go back to school.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

I say that too when I have three masters, so it's like earlier.

Andrew 9:24

You had mentioned Hurricane Ida, and I'm very curious to hear about that experience because the news covers things all the time, and we hear about what's happening in different parts of the world, but I haven't had an opportunity to sit down with someone who's lived through Ida and even have the lens of an educator to have that perspective. So I'm curious about a lot of things, so I'll just give you a couple of them, and you can go wherever you want with this. But I'm curious what were the impacts? How did they impact you professionally? What did it look like for the families that you serve and that you work with? But you know, were there impacts there? And then what was the road back to recovery? You know, do you feel like you've returned as a community? Are they still working on it? You know, those are a few to get you started. And if you, you know, if you have four, I have more.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Oh, that's a lot. So we went, it was like, I think it was going into a weekend, like it was a Friday, and they're like, hey, there's a hurricane coming. And you know, we had been watching it, we knew it was probably gonna be a bigger one. You know, we just kind of prepared to school like we normally do. You know, you cover all the computers up and you pull things away from the windows, and you know, you're thinking to yourself, Oh, we'll be back by midweek. It's just gonna be a little one because you know, the little ones is maybe a week, three, four days out, and then everything's back up.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

But these ones, like when I was in Florida, were you guys like this where we were like, Oh, it's a hurricane, but it's only a category two, so I'm not even gonna put not even gonna put the boards up on the windows.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

It started off like that too, because like at our house, we were like, Oh, we aren't we didn't, we're not gonna board up the house because I think it had been predicted at first they're like a one or a two, but then some I think it hung out in the Gulf for a little while, if I remember. By the time it was almost here, they're like, it could be a five, and we were like, Whoa, like this is kind of crazy. So, you know, we boarded up the house, and I think it wasn't officially like a three whenever it was supposed to make a landfall. We decided to stay, which is probably the last time in my life I'll ever stay for one like that because it just sat over water for so long, and like it was insane. I remember watching across the street, they had a 10 roof on their house, and I watched it just peel off and fly down the street. All of a sudden they come knocking on the door, they're like, Can we come in? I'm like, uh yeah. Like, was that that that shouldn't even be a question for anybody because it was raining in the house, and I'm like, well, duh, the whole roof peeled off. But we were out of school for a month because it took that long for just infrastructure to come back. At my house in particular, we didn't get power back for like 21 days because it just snapped all the power poles in half that feed the power this way, and they had to rebuild almost the whole thing. They let us go back to the school, I'd say about two days before we went back. But we didn't even start even hearing anything from like any administrators or the district until it had been almost three weeks in, because I mean nobody had power, nobody could go do anything. So communication really sucked too. I mean, at least cell phones were working because like the big thing with Katrina was you couldn't get cell service, and everybody that's whenever texting like wasn't really a big thing, but it became a big thing because that's all that worked after Katrina was texting.

Andrew 12:39

And that's how you graduated college, if I remember correctly.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

It was that was 2005.

Andrew 12:44

It was all the way back then when we used to have to use a horse and buggy, that was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Now everybody checks for everything now, right? So we got to go to the school and see how things looked, and like there was no ceiling tiles. It was mostly like just water damage from dripping, you know. And they had said some remediation people had come in and they like sprayed everything down, but like it left the film on all the tables and stuff. And then the the crazy thing was was the two high schools that are further south than we are, but in the same district, they were destroyed. They couldn't go to school there anymore. So that was kind of one of the reasons we took so long to go back because they decided to do what was called a platoon, and we shared the school with another school. There's four high schools in our area, so one shared with one and then we shared with another. So we would go to school for a half a day, seven to twelve, I think we would go. And then the other one was coming from like 12:30 to 530 or something like that. So I was teaching biology in 26 minute classes because that's all we could do.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

And it's only possible. So how did you how did you determine what you were and weren't gonna teach? And you had to prove it.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

That was almost non-existent. And then the crazy thing was was we weren't allowed to give homework because they didn't want to stress the students out because you didn't know what people's home life was like whenever they would go home. If they even because some people were living in like FEMA trailers, think like a camper. Like some people pulled a camper up in their front yard, they set it up, and their house is parked behind the camper, not livable, gutted. And these kids are going with like a family of five or six living in this small camper with one bedroom in it, you know. So, you know, you just didn't know what everybody else was going through. And then, you know, the kids would come back. And then when we went back, there's just kids that didn't show up, you know, because they moved because they had nothing left. Like if they rented and their house got destroyed, you know, they might have had to move to Baton Rouge or Texas or something like that to go with family or just find a place to go. So I mean, the numbers dropped significantly at our school. Like I want to say, our school in particular probably lost, I think 400 students, maybe. Oh, wow. They had said at the time. I mean, some people have since come back, you know, because it's been four years. Yeah. But just, you know, in the town, the area is still rebuilding, I would say. Because if you look around, depending on what area you go drive through, it's still just it's almost like New Orleans with Katrina, but not on the same scale because there's still places that they still haven't torn down in New Orleans. But I mean, you'll pass down the road and you've got like four good houses, and then you've got one that's not livable and just looks run down because nobody's really done anything with it. We're getting there, you know, recovery's coming, but it's definitely slow when it's something big like that.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Yeah. So when we were talking before recording, had mentioned that you were a shell winner, and that part of you getting the award was due in part to your story around what had happened around the hurricane. Like what that was like, how that whole process went down and all the cool things that come with being an award winner.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Sure. They actually had a conference what I think it was two years ago in the fall, NSTA came to New Orleans. So school district's like, oops, close by. We sent all kinds of people because we only live about 45 minutes away from there. So that was actually my first NSTA conference. I had never been to any kind of teaching conference. So that was like a whole new world of experiences for me. But walking through the expo hall, I walked by the booth and I think it was a past winter. She was like, Yeah, it's great. You know, sign up for this. So I was like, okay. So I had picked it up when I got home and I looked at it and I kind of started, and then it was a lot of writing. And, you know, part of me was like, wow, I really don't feel like doing this. But what's great is that the person, Amanda, that organizes all the shell programs, she sends out reminders, hey, you haven't finished your application. I think she does that strategically, probably because she knows people like me started and are like, nah, I don't really want to do this. So then, you know, it that was like around Christmas time. So like I put it aside. And then we got to after all the breaks and we're getting to the end of the school year rounded down. And I'm like, you know, let me finish this. I finished it up. I sent it in and I sent it in thinking, man, a chance that this is gonna happen, right? And then I get an email in May that I won for our region. So the way the shell science lab challenge works is that anywhere that shell has an asset. So like down here, it's all the drilling and plants and you know, refineries, booking in Pennsylvania. I think they have like fracking there. And like in California, they have, I think it's the hydro, I forgot what they called it. It was something fancy. So they have assets in different places. So I won for the New Orleans region because that's what we're closest to. So I was like, oh, yeah, cool, we'll get a conference. But the great thing, not just because the go to the conference is really cool. And we got to go to Minneapolis in the fall. And the big thing is the $10,000 that you get to spend on supplies through Flynn. That was really cool working with them. It's almost like a gift card. Like you just kind of contact somebody that works there and you go back and forth until your dream wish list is basically the amount of money that you spent. So, I mean, we got all kind of really cool stuff for the school. Like we got a new weather station. Our weather station died in Hurricane Ida, which that was technically before I was at the school, but the other teachers had told me we had used to have it. And weather's a big unit like in seventh grade science. So that was really cool to get like a nice weather station. And we got a couple of different kits, we got goggles, like new goggles for everybody. Cause you know, when you've been using the same things for a while, they were all broken and stuff. And they could tie rod, it's plastic. It was amazing. And then some of the rest of the award is you know, you get your NSTA membership for a year, and then there's like the cohort where we can all talk. Is it nice that you have a little different people to talk because there's 26 winners between all the different locations because you've got an elementary, a middle, and a high school. Oh all of them. So then to get the grand prize, you have to make a video of all the things you got. And then there's more questions that they want you to answer about impact and like how you benefited from it. So, of course, here we go again. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna make this video and send it in, but I'm like, I don't think it's gonna be that good, right? And then in February, I got a phone call and she's like, Are you sitting down? And I'm like, Well, there's no other reason that you're gonna call me except for this. And she's like, Yeah, you won. And of course, I had my cry moment, you know, happy tears, and we talked, and then here I am, I wound up at another conference in Anaheim. That's fantastic. That's so it's it's a real fun story, you know. And I just I never really thought that it could be me, but then there's this thought where, like, you know, just try, yeah, and then look where I am now. I never thought I was gonna win a national award ever in my life, and now it's it's kind of just opened the gateway just to meet new people and just to inspire, I guess.

Andrew 19:54

What a great opportunity for educators and a great resource. Yeah, and it sounds like there are lots of different opportunities in different areas that someone could apply for. But I think we're gonna be supported in that way to get resources that you probably desperately need in your classroom. And the other thing about the story that I love is the perseverance, right? We've all encountered things where we started and we think it's gonna be easy. And I feel like that can be sometimes the case when you're looking at some sort of application, but the payoff is obviously tremendous, and it sounds like it changed not just your classroom, but a lot of things within the school. So it's a tremendous opportunity for educators, and I think something that they should look at and consider because I would imagine that you're able to teach differently and/or different things, or get into different things because of the resources that you're given. Which again, as I understand it, you are actually looking to go back to high school, but those resources will still be there for those students and in that school.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Oh, yeah. And I, you know, I f I look at it as a legacy that I can leave behind for the school. You know, I I did this for you guys, and I did inspire one of my co-workers over there to try to apply for it for next year. So fantastic. He's working on his application for that too.

Andrew 21:12

Well, Erica, thank you for coming on the show and for sharing on hearing your story, hearing your experience, that you're also a shell winner. But I also want to say uh big thank you to the partnership of Shell and NSTA, yeah, and that they're able to support educators in their work and continue doing so. And it's it even sounds like from what you explained, it's not a ones and done. Like they make sure that you're able to come to conferences that you're connected to.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

That's the cool part. The connections are the great part.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

I I met so many great people, and the part that Flynn plays in this, too. Like, that's really huge, too. Because I mean they provide all of that stuff.

Andrew 21:52

So it took partnership from large organizations to come together and make this happen, which again is great modeling for what we to be doing in education and leading people.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Andrew 22:04

All right. Well thank you, Erica. And we wish you all the best.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

You're welcome. Thank you for having me too.