William Patterson ’27
Ron Smith is one of EA’s newest additions to the Upper School Science Department. Smith is very experienced in the field and pursues real-world conservation efforts. He incorporates similar hands-on field studies in his classes, striving to connect classroom lessons with day-to-day life. Smith is very passionate about educating students and growing their interest in environmental science.
When did you become interested in environmental science?
Well, my original interest goes all the way back to being a kid. I just always liked nature and being outdoors. I especially liked biodiversity, so I loved seeing, you know, frogs and toads and turtles and birds and pretty much everything outdoors. When I was younger, that for me was just recreation and enjoyment. And it was the latter part of college where it started to kind of come into focus as an academic interest, and then ultimately, as a professional one.
Where did you attend college?
Boston College was my undergrad, and then Rutgers was my master’s.
Did you take a certain class or was it a specific professor that sparked a deeper interest?
Yeah, it’s funny you say that. I was a bio major because I always loved biology in all capacities, but in my third year of college, I took a field ecology course with an interesting guy. His last name was Wolf, Robert Wolf, and he was my first educator who ever did anything outside academically. Everything else was kind of always lab-based stuff. And so in my third year, we did some field studies, and I really got into that, and it was definitely influential in carving out a future career path.
And, you know, I guess just to build on that a little bit, reflecting back as I do now and as I did in my early days in teaching, one of the things I wanted to make sure I could do for my students is something I didn’t have when I was in high school and before, which is I didn’t have those outdoor experiences to open up that possible door to a career path, right? So when I started teaching environmental science early in my education career, I made a point to say, you know, I want to make sure that the students get the full picture of the learning experience, which is the outdoor component.
I heard that you’re pretty active in conservation. Could you tell me a little bit about that work?
I do a lot of conservation work, so it’s both embedded with my teaching, because my students have been involved in every project that I’ve been involved with. So I’ve had students doing shorebird research, which is a 20-year project that I’ve been involved with. We do horseshoe crab conservation, which is going to be the focus of my May Term. I’ve had students doing sea turtle monitoring down in Costa Rica. We’ve done amphibian surveys in the pine barren. So pretty much all the work, and it’s been a great run of both education and conservation. So it’s nice to be able to marry those two things together.
Do you have any hobbies outside of your work endeavors?
I mean, well, anything outside. I love gardening, I like hiking, I do play some traditional music, I play the fiddle. So, I do like music and reading, but probably on any given day, if I’m given the choice to do something recreational, it’s probably something to get outdoors.
What has been your favorite part of teaching at EA so far?
I mean, the thing that I always have enjoyed, and have had the opportunity to benefit from here, is to have students who are engaged in the subject matter. That’s the kind of the thing that I really look for in a professional setting; I’ve worked in certain programs where it’s a little more challenging to get kids interested. So whether it’s in an urban environment, or a really rural environment, I have experience with both, but it’s nice to come into a program where there’s that built-in interest and curiosity in students that have passion for the subject. So if you can fan the flames of that as a teacher, then you know that you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing.