Chinle science teacher heads to sea on research expeditions

Chinle and Apache County students are set to gain more than a summer story when Kim Etsitty heads to sea: live ocean broadcasts, classroom outreach and new science lessons she can carry back to Navajo Pine High School. The Diné educator, who was born in Chinle and graduated from Chinle High School, is spending her break preparing for back-to-back research expeditions that put a local teacher on a national science stage.

Etsitty was named a 2026 Lead Science Communication Fellow by Ocean Exploration Trust and also a 2026 Grosvenor Teacher Fellow through the National Geographic Society and Lindblad Expeditions. Ocean Exploration Trust said it reviewed more than 100 applications for the fellowship cohort. The role is designed to send educators into the field so they can provide live audio commentary, ship-to-shore broadcasts and classroom and community outreach, giving students in places like Chinle a direct line to science that usually feels far away from home.

That matters in Apache County, where many Diné students rarely see ocean science reflected in their classrooms or in the people leading it. Etsitty, who has taught Diné children since 2015, said through her Nautilus Live profile that she teaches science through an Indigenous lens and has helped develop an Indigenous Science Curriculum centered on land-based learning. She has also taught students from second through 12th grade for more than a decade and works as a curriculum writer with Los Alamos National Laboratory, a combination that could translate into new classroom material once the expeditions are over.

Her summer schedule is tied to the 2026 E/V Nautilus season, which will explore deep-sea habitats in the Central and Western Pacific. The season begins with Pacific Mapping from June 10 to 24, followed by NA178, NA179, NA180 and NA181, and the voyages are primarily sponsored by NOAA Ocean Exploration through the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute. Etsitty’s profile also says a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory educator workshop in December 2023 pushed her toward ocean exploration after an undersea-rover presentation sparked her interest in ocean worlds.

Etsitty’s selection is not a one-off. Ocean Exploration Trust chose her as a Science Communication Fellow in 2024 as well, and the 2026 role makes her a mentor to first-time fellows. For Chinle students watching a teacher from their own community move from a Navajo Nation classroom to ocean research, the payoff is likely to be measured in lessons, research examples and a clearer path into STEM fields that too often seem distant from Apache County.