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Eric M. Kessler
Biographical Information
I was born in the mid-1960’s in Colorado, grew up in Kansas City, Missouri (with a mechanical-engineer father, a stay-at-home mother, and an older brother), and
went to school at the University of Texas in Austin.
Upon graduating with degrees in both Zoology and Psychology, I was unable to focus my general interests into a specific Masters degree plan, and within two
years was working in a suburban school just across the border (from Missouri) in Kansas (my father had been a school board member and both he and my mother instilled a belief that community service was important).
After a simple beginning with teachings to freshman biology and honors biology students, my plate has expanded with teachings to sophomores through seniors in field biology, zoology, and AP biology courses.
I also sponsor our schools environmental club. For a time, I assisted in coaching cross-country and track, and helped to put on a summer mountain ecology course (trip to Colorado), and was the technology committee chairman for our school. While all this was going on, I got married to my lovely and hardworking stay-at-home wife, commuted 110 miles one-way four days a week for four summers working on a Masters degree in biology, completed research on woodland snakes and had two wonderful daughters. Finally, this semester, I have taken on a Monday/Wednesday evening community college course in biology.
I have now been teaching for 10 years.
I enjoy taking students outdoors into the local native prairies, woodlands, and streams, in an effort to reintroduce them to their childlike nature while exposing them to the wonderful plants, invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals that surround their everyday lives (in a rigorous scientific manner to be sure). I enjoy taking pictures, producing digital panoramas and movies, and was in the habitat of maintaining a website for my students. I am lucky to have a computer lab in my classroom and have begun to implement website production, and other instructional software into my courses, and look forward to integrating GIS in my field biology class in the near future. I am an active member in a number of statewide professional scientific organizations, including being the treasurer of the Kansas Herpetological Society.
When not doing biology, I enjoy spending time with my family, grandparents, and close friends.
Our family eats dinner together, plays outside, read books, draws, paints, plays with play dough and blocks, plays on the computer, goes to the uphill park, take baths, and even watch some TV. In the summer we celebrate the Four-of-July with friends, attended a family reunion in Oklahoma, and have recently restarted our annual canoeing pilgrimage to the clear protected streams of Southern Missouri. Someday when we have a little more money, we’ll get a little bit further from home. But we love it the way it is and would not have it any other way.
Work Information
Job Title/Department
Courses/Levels taught—Key responsibilities
- Field Biology
- Zoology
- AP Biology
- Honors Biology
Clubs and Extra-Curricular activities
- Environmental Club Sponsor
- Assistant Cross Country and Track Coach
- Technology Committee Chairman
- Photography
- Outdoor activities
School Information
Blue Valley North HighSchool
12200 Lamar Road
Overland Park KS 66209
Contact Information
ekessler@bv229.k12.ks.us
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