The time has come and my STLP journey has begun. I have spent this week in a continual flux of excitement, anxiety and the beginnings of even more of an appreciation for what teachers 'do'.

The week started off with my first day at the University of Auckland, Earth Science Department. My host Kathy was gracious enough to let me shadow her through a lecture and several of her meetings. I met the 'Astrobiology team', some PhD students looking at ocean acidification where I got to touch and talk about some 1000 year old coral, and meet the honors student who I am going to work with to talk a bit more in depth about the 'Rotorua on Mars' project. I really enjoyed wandering the campus and reveled in the fact I was surrounded by the innocence of the student lifestyle again. I recieved my student ID (the peak of excitement!) and access to the library, copiers, internet and all those essentials.

The Science building at the University is a really lovely, positive space. I recieved lots of smiles and people were happy to meet me, so that was a relief.

On Wednesday we flew down to Wellington for the Induction symposium where I had the chance to meet the rest of my cohort. We spent 3 wonderful days getting to know each other, and I left on Friday feeling really lucky and positive about the group of people I am going to experience this opportunity with.

We had to opportunity to meet each other's hosts and a support staff member from each school, design some small science experiments and then discuss the teaching and learning behind them. I enjoy watching teachers when they are in the position of the learner, the curiosity and determination in their eyes is just the same as any of our students.

The big thought provoking idea for this week was the idea of metacognition: thinking about thinking. There were many discussions about the change of pace from being in the classroom where your day/week is meticulously planned out, to being with our hosts where we often will not know what is happening from one day to the next. This being the case, we will have time to slow down and actually give ourselves the time and space to contemplate what we are experiencing, what new learning can come from our hosts and eventually how this can benefit the future of science teaching in schools.