Who Am I?

 

Contact me: pperry@lewistonpublicschools.org

I grew up in Bridgton, Maine and graduated from Lake Region High School. I majored in physics and geology and minored in mathematics at Bowdoin College. I received a Masters in Education from University of Massachusetts, Amherst. I've always loved science and learning - a legacy from my father who bought me a chemistry set, took me out at midnight to stargaze, and was my high school chemistry and physics teacher.

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I spent two years between undergrad and grad school on the island of Monserrat in the West Indies. Before this I'd never been out of the United States except to Canada and had never been on a plane! I wanted the experience of living in another culture before I had to settle down and get a real job (ha). To support myself, I typed class notes for a medical school (learning all sorts of interesting but icky things), ran a laundry service, and managed and cooked for a snack bar. My house faced west over the ocean and had a volcano in its back yard. In 1997, approximately ten years after I left, Soufriere erupted, covering the town of Plymouth (where I'd lived) in 6 ft. of ash. Left is a picture of a flamboyant tree that I took while I was there.


Chandra image from boeing.com

I have been teaching since the fall of 1988 and at Lewiston High School since 1991. During this time, I have taught physical science, earth science, chemistry, astronomy, physics, and a course called "waves, music and art".

My favorite part of teaching is developing new activities which I also do as a Chandra Resource Agent for the Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory for the Chandra website. Chandra is an x-ray observatory studying high energy phenomena in the universe. It is one of the "great" observatories like Hubble.

I am also a published poet and edit a quarterly online poetry journal. The college textbook, Language and Prejudice by Tamara Valentine, contains my poem "The Secret Language of Women" about Nu Shu, a secret written language of women from Jian-yong county in the Hunan province of China

"Language and Prejudice by Tamara Valentine