The majority of students and teachers see summer break as a way to disassociate themselves from the ever-looming presence of school and learning, but Biology teacher Aaron Lynott visited the Galapagos Islands with a Teacher Creativity grant through Eli Lilly to keep his mind active and ready for the upcoming school year.

“They offer the grant to one-hundred educators every year,” Lynott said. “This was my fourth or fifth time trying for it, and I finally won.”

The little over ten day trip included land excursions, visiting local sites, exploring volcanoes and lava tunnels, and analyzing the waters surrounding the islands.

“Most of my time was spent on a scuba diving yacht,” Lynott said. “We’d travel from island to island and scuba dive four or five times a day.”

The photos and videos that Lynott captured, some of which are posted on YouTube, will not only be used as keepsakes, but also as references in his Biology classes. He plans to use them when he begins to dive deeper into the topics of Charles Darwin and evolution with his students.

“When we talk about Darwin’s Finches, the Galapagos, comparing different kinds of animals, and ecosystems, I’ll be able to use my own pictures and videos,” Lynott said. “They’ll be used for a lot of different stuff throughout the year.”