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Teacher shares passion through Friday Explorations

Besides providing students the opportunity to explore new interests and delve deeper into areas they already love, Friday Explorations also enable our faculty to share with students their own passions and skills that they’d likely not have the opportunity to teach in the course of their daily subject matter.

For example, you may know Mr. Stephen Krohn as the talented artist and art teacher behind our flourishing digital arts program. But did you also know that he is an avid birder? Thanks to Friday Explorations, several of our students now know this and got to learn about and experience this interest with him.

After connecting with Dr. Renee Duckworth, a TGS parent and professor in the University of Arizona’s Department of  Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, who, with her graduate students, was on campus doing a Friday Exploration bird banding project, Mr. Krohn got the opportunity to create an Exploration to build bird boxes for Lucy’s Warblers on campus and then study the birds.

Mr. Krohn and students in both Middle and Upper School worked together to set up 50 nesting boxes. So far, 11 boxes have developed nests and the team has recorded nine eggs and two babies. 

Mr. Krohn explained that one thing that makes Lucy’s Warblers especially interesting for students in Tucson to study is the birds’ migratory range. “Most warblers continue much farther north for summer, but Lucy’s Warblers spend their entire migratory season in Tucson. They only migrate between Mexico and Southern Arizona,” he said. In the coming school year, Mr. Krohn plans to continue to study the Lucy’s Warblers with students on our campus and work with Dr. Duckworth’s lab and our students to band them. 

"It is the spirit of collaboration that impresses me the most at the Gregory School. There is so much creativity coming from the students and my fellow staff. It is their imagination that is continuously driving my own creativity as an art teacher. When we all begin collaborating together and sharing our amazing ideas, only magical things can happen. It’s exciting to be part of the faculty at The Gregory School and have this positive energy in my life every day."

Stephen Krohn. B.F.A.

Graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BFA from the University of Arizona, Stephen Krohn is one of our Middle School Faculty. Besides teaching at the Gregory school, Mr. Krohn has spent much of his career teaching in Bangladesh, South Korea, Alaska, and various camps across the US.