Who We Are:
Philip Browne Dr. Barry Rock Patxi Pastor
The thread that binds the three of us in our commitment to honoring a dedication written by Steven McAuliffe for his wife Christa McAuliffe, the Concord High teacher, lost with the other members of the crew of NASA's space shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986 -
"She tried to protect our spaceship Earth.
She taught her children to do the same."
Philip Browne - Retired K-12 Science Educator
Phil is a passionate outdoorsman - hiking, fishing, gardening, forest management - so it is only natural that he would bring that outdoor passion to his K-12 students, both college bound and at-risk, during his 35 years of teaching. He authored and administered nearly twenty federal, state, and local grants and fellowships that brought authentic terrestrial, fresh water and marine scientific inquiry to both his indoor and outdoor classrooms. Since retirement he has continued to expand these areas of inquiry and outreach; still working with and providing outreach education for the University of New Hampshire (UNH), and Trout Unlimited, NH Fish and Game, and Northeast Organic Farming Association-NH, while helping to create World Ocean Watch (WOW) and SOS - Success on STEAM in association with Celebration of the Sea. Phil also designs and builds tiny houses and boulder gardens that decorate his property.
Dr. Barry Rock - Emeritus Professor of Natural Resources University of New Hampshire
Barry began his outreach educational efforts as an undergraduate at the University of Vermont where to win the heart of his sweet wife Gerrie, he taught astronomy concepts to her 4-H students. He continued these astronomy outreach efforts while serving as the group leader in Geobotanical Remote Sensing at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). The loss of Challenger shelved his research efforts at JPL so he returned to his New England roots to accept a teaching and research position in the Complex Systems Research Center at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). The first piece of mail he read on his first day at UNH, was a letter from Concord High School’s Phil Browne who was looking for a way to honor the Teacher in Space lessons that Concord’s Christa McAuliffe never got to teach. Phil wanted to have his students provide the corroborating “ground truth” data collection for a geobotanical remote sensing scientist as a way to convey the message of climate change to his students. “Yes,” Barry replied. Forest Watch and its many iterations – to include the international Global Learning to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE), and SOS-Success On STEAM, were born.
Patxi Pastor - Founder and CEO of Celebration of the Sea, Executive Producer for large-scale civic and fund-raising events, scuba instructor and videographer, and the Patxi Pastor All Star Band.
The rhythm and flow of both the lyrics and melodies of music, and the tides and currents of the sea have created the network of passions that is Patxi Pastor. Most of his adult life has been a quest to find ways to bring a feeling for these passions to his friends and his communities, but most importantly to the youth of the world. A youth whose relationship to the beauty and bounty of the sea is now being stripped away by human induced climate change. In 1990, a letter from Patxi to Concord High’s Principal requesting the opportunity to share the undersea work he had carried out with students as part of a Christa McAuliffe Fellowship in Connecticut, flowed into the hands of Phil Browne. Phil and Patxi linked up in that marine experience and other K-12 marine efforts in New England, and then with Barry Rock in the creation of World Ocean Watch – WOW, the updated SOS-Success On STEAM, and now in support of the work of the newly launched ocean research and rescue vessel M/V Lana Rose for Mission Resolve.