Christine Kola

Christine Kola was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. She has been teaching in New York City for the past sixteen years.  She received her undergraduate degree in computers from Fordham University and her graduate degree in geosciences from Mississippi State University. She is currently an Earth Science and Chemistry teacher in a New York City high school in the Bronx. She discovered her love for paleontology while teaching an Earth's history unit to her students. Her classroom now reflects her passion for this topic with many resources for the students including books, replicas, and actual fossils.

The American Museum of Natural History has always been one of Christine's favorite places to visit when growing up. She was fascinated with the dinosaur halls and spent most of her time there. Christine's work with the museum started twelve years ago when she participated in the professional development of a new middle school science exit project initiative called Urban Advantage. For the past seven years, Christine has been an instructor in the Lang Science Program and the After School Program. She teaches geology and paleontology courses to students in grades six through twelve.

For many of her students, Christine's classroom is their first experience with geology. She understands the importance of inquiry based learning. She believes that students must be able to handle specimens to truly understand and grasp what they are so much of her free time is spent on field trips collecting specimens of rocks, minerals and fossils to bring back to her classroom. Her fossil collection consist mostly invertebrate specimens. They are placed all around the classroom. This enables her students to explore and investigate them up close.

Spare time for Christine is usually devoted to outdoors and science. She enjoys hiking and running half marathons and full marathons. Christine's favorite fossil experience is volunteering for a paleontologist every summer in North Dakota starting three years ago. She helps excavate dinosaurs in the badlands during the day and preparing fossils in the lab after returning from the field.