Outside of teaching, Astronomy teacher Mr. Brandt enjoys the outdoors, hiking, improving his home by making home improvements, and most importantly, the art of photography.
Brandt’s love for photography has been incorporated into his career as a teacher. Inside his classroom, Brandt has a photo wall in his room filled with his own pictures, which he often replaces. Outside his room Brandt has filled the upper S-hallway with photos. The Blue Angels, galaxies, sunsets, and star clusters are the main ones that he features.Some of the photos are his own and others he has found over the years. His photo wall began when he found a place that had cheap printing of photos. Since that day, It has grown into something more than just a decorative hall.
Along with the photos on the walls, underneath each photo is a QR code which students can scan with their phones and learn more about what’s in the picture or a small description with information about the photos. This makes it easy for students to learn from the photos.
Brandt is currently working on adding more to the collection. “It’s meant to be whatever you want to take out of it instead of just a boring hallway wall,” said Brandt on his wall of photographs. This project is truly an extraordinary thing that Brandt intends to continue expanding throughout the upper S hallway.
The upper S hallway may be filling with new pictures after Brandt returns from this trip to Finland.
Brandt’s wife applied for a Fulbright Award which took her to Finland. With having a baby girl, Brandt will be taking a sabbatical from work to travel with his wife and little girl to Finland where the average temperature is 33 degrees and there are only 5 hours of daylight. In the few hours of daylight, Brant hopes to explore Finland’s culture, especially ice hockey. At night, he hopes to take advantage of the aura and the high latitude by taking pictures to show to his astronomy classes and to add to his well-known picture wall.
Brant’s favorite thing is seeing 6 month-old girl reach important milestones in her life,“ I love to watch her development.” commented Brant. “ Last week, she got up on all fours and started crawling.”
The thing he will miss the most in his months away from teaching is the interaction he has with students. “ I will miss the ah ha moment when a student finally starts to understand something, I will miss stretching their minds as well.” said Brant.
Mr. Brant will be returning to the classroom for the 2016-2017 school year, but until then he will be exploring Finland and experiencing a new way of life.