PINE CITY THURSDAY, MAY 14 , 2020 PIONEER VOL. 135 NO. 20 www.pinecitymn.com $1.00 GET INSPIRED: Writers share thoughts on blessings and love in the time of COVID-19. P8 THINKING OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM graduating from Cambridge in I was hired to kind of fill in Pine City teacher a 1998, and earning his college where Elisa Mill had worked degree from Northwestern with the junior high alternative finalist for Minnesota in Communication Arts and program,” Larson said. “She Literature Education in 2002, he was one of the folks that started Teacher of the Year worked a range of jobs – doing that program. I was grateful for timber framing with Great it.” BY MIKE GAINOR Northern Woodworks out of Larson proposed switching to
[email protected] Cambridge, then shifting to more of a project-based learning outdoor education with Voya- format, and in 2015 the school Pine City High School teacher geur Outward Bound school ran with it. “Dragon Academy” Ryan Larson has been named in Ely for three years running covers math, science, social one of 10 finalists for Minnesota dogsledding and skiing expedi- studies and English. Larson Teacher of the Year – and he’s tions. After briefly returning works with 8th and 9th graders done so by thinking outside the to timber framing, in 2012 he for two, 2-hour blocks per day classroom. started working at Pine City alongside Mrs. Dennis, a math PHOTO PROVIDED Larson brings broad life ex- High School. Larson taught his students how to build a 19-foot long skin-on-frame perience to his teaching.