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Twenty-One Miles: the furthest you can get from a road in the lower 48
Nowhere in the lower 48 can you stand more than 21.64 miles from a road, and that spot is the southeast corner of Yellowstone. An interactive map of every acre of the contiguous United States.
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Counting Trees on Our Adirondack Property Using LiDAR, Aerial Imagery, and AI
Counting Trees on Our Adirondack Property Using LiDAR, Aerial Imagery, and AI It started with a pretty simple question: How many trees are actually on our Adirondack property? Our parcel is relatively small, but like much of the Adirondacks, it is heavily
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Texting ChatGPT From the Middle of Nowhere
Some of my favorite places have no cell signal at all. Our camp up in the Adirondacks, a trailhead an hour from the nearest tower, the back end of a paddle. It's the whole point of going - but every so often you're standing out there wishing you could jus
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A New Chapter: Becoming a Centaur
I guess it's official: next year, I'll be a Centaur. I'll be joining the STARS program at City Honors School as a science special education teacher, working primarily with students with autism. Depending on the needs of the student body, I may also work w
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The Five Stages of Grief (Budget Cut Edition)
I always assumed that if I left McKinley, it would be because I chose to. Maybe for another opportunity. Maybe for a career change. Maybe because I finally lost my mind after hearing "Can I go to the bathroom?" 14,000 times. I didn't expect it to happen b
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How I Use the HRRR Model to Figure Out What the Weather Is Actually Going to Do
I'll start with a confession: I'm a science nerd. I love learning about science, looking at data, and playing with the same tools that real scientists use. Whether it's environmental data, graphs, models, or simulations, I've always been more interested i
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Why I Applied to the NYS Master Teacher Program (and Why I'm Glad I Did)
I'll start with honesty. When I first applied to the NYS Master Teacher Program, the money mattered. A $15,000 annual stipend over four years is not insignificant, especially in a profession where financial recognition is rare. That was my initial motivat
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When AI Helps Me Teach-and When It Helps Me Avoid Myself
I recently read an opinion piece in PNAS that introduced a term I haven't been able to shake: machinal bypass. The authors describe machinal bypass as using artificial intelligence not just to support our work, but to sidestep the uncomfortable, human par
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I Assumed Poverty Explained Chronic Absenteeism. I Was Wrong.
Chronic absenteeism is closely tied to poverty - that much is well established. Across New York State, students who are economically disadvantaged are far more likely to miss school at rates that qualify as chronic absenteeism. When attendance becomes a c
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When the Bus Doesn't Show Up: Transportation and Attendance in Buffalo Public Schools
When we talk about attendance in schools, the conversation usually goes to student motivation, family involvement, or whether students feel connected to their classes. Those things matter, of course, but after a recent conversation with a colleague, I fou
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