Alexa Bennett, Geography and Environmental Management
Alexa Bennett believes exceptional teaching extends far beyond course content. When she designed a 9-week field course in Ghana, she built an entire learning experience, from field trips to coastal erosion sites and lab activities on microplastics in fish, to community engagement with local Non-Governmental Organizations and nightly debrief sessions to help students process what they were seeing.
"My approach centres on creating place-based learning opportunities where students can engage deeply with the topics they study, follow their curiosity, and connect theory with real-world contexts through direct experience," Bennett says.
The care she brought to every dimension of the course left a deep impression. When a student fell ill, she arranged clinic access and stayed with them through treatment. When logistical chaos threatened to derail a flight connection mid-journey, she acted quickly enough to save the group hours of delay.
"Without her guidance this course would not have been possible, and without her caring personality and leadership, this course would not have been nearly as enjoyable," wrote one nominating student.
Her teaching draws on innovative methods, including cross-cultural debates with students from the University of Cape Coast, flexible assignments that allowed students to demonstrate learning through blogs or videos, and weekly one-on-one check-ins with every student. For Bennett, those methods reflect a deeper intention: "I want students to recognize that to be a researcher or a scientist is not to separate ourselves from our humanity. Rather, science is a way of engaging with the world in informed, ethical, and responsive ways."