Mr Giles NASA Exploration Class

click above to play a short video

I am currently teaching at Audubon Park School. I teach third grade. I am excited to be a LEGO Education Master Educator and often use LEGO’s, Robotics, STEM activities, games, projects and other activities in my classroom. I belive students learn better when they are engaged and having fun.

I taught 6th grade Life Science and Exploration of Robotics at Glenridge Middle School. I sponsored the Robotics Club.

 

 

 

 

 

I taught second grade at Palmetto Elementary and 3rd and 4th grade at Baldwin Park Elementary. My classes were digital, paperless classrooms. My students worked on desktops, netbooks and tablets to do most of their work digitally. You can see their video podcasts on my youtube channel.

For 6 years I taught science to K-5 at Rock Lake Elementary School. My classroom was the science lab. I was lucky enough to work with all the students in the school and watch them grow year after year. I sponsored the Science Club and the Environmental Club, which were involved in the community and maintained a school garden.

In the years before I became a teacher I worked as a zookeeper and animal trainer at Zoo Miami  and the Kansas City Zoo. I worked with everything from goats and camels to big cats, binturongs, sea lions, primates and reptiles. I did birds shows, sea lion presentations, animal feedings, animal encounters and other types of educational programs.

I also rehabilitated injured and orphaned wildlife as the assistant curator of the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey in Maitland. We took in hundreds of birds of prey each year. Some of these injured and orphaned birds were rehabilitated and released back into the wild (the orphans were my favorite, especially the screech owls!) Non-releasable birds, using falconry techniques, were kept for educational programs. In addition, I raised some orphan wildlife on my own, like a flying squirrel, gray squirrels and raccoons.

In my last job before I became a teacher, I worked with alligators and other animals as the Natural Sciences Manager at the Orlando Science Center. I worked with a terrific staff and group of volunteers. We did a live animal show in the theater. We did animal feedings and encounters for the public along with other educational programs, like the Circle of Life Game.