‘Follow your curiosity’

By T_ 2D___ • Photos by D____ S____

Julie Klipfel’s fourth graders have a window to the world in their Howe-Manning Elementary School classroom. Among the photos, flags, art, stuffed animals, humorous doodads and immersive 360-degree videos — Amazonian experiences beckon.

Klipfel spent two weeks in July along the Boiling River in the Peruvian rainforest on a teaching fellowship offered by The Explorers Club, a professional society dedicated to scientific exploration and field research.

She flew to Miami, Florida, then to Lima, Peru, and to a small city in the Amazon. She then joined her crew for hours slogging over jungle roads and hours more in a motorized canoe before finally hiking to camp.

The Middleton teacher and three fellow teachers from New York City and Alaska assisted a team of scientists in their research into a 4-mile stretch of river where water approaches the boiling point.

The group didn’t have far to go for their morning coffee or tea. They dipped their mugs in the river for hot water, which registers temperatures above 200 degrees.

It’s hot enough to cook any small animal or human who falls in.

One night on a nocturnal walk, the group found a sloth dangerously close to the Boiling River and carried the animal to safety in the forest.

Throughout the day, the teachers measured river water flows and temperatures and other variables.

Geothermal researcher Andrés Ruzo, director of the nonprofit Boiling River Project, led the expedition. The project combines science, Indigenous knowledge and conservation opportunities to better understand and protect the Boiling River.

Squirrel monkeys leaped in the canopy. Toucans called. Rainbow boas and pink-toed tarantulas stirred as the scientists investigated this understudied place, including a search to see what life forms live in the extreme conditions.

One scientist studied fluorescent bugs and plants. Another scientist studied stingless bees. But the river itself was the big kahuna.

What is invaluable about fellowships is their reach. The teachers return home to teach students, parents and others about the world’s wonders and the need to preserve and respect enchanting and culturally important places.

Ruzo states in an email that pairing scientific research with K-12 teachers and students is a next frontier that promises advances in understanding and action.

“Students in Middleton may have never heard of the Boiling River, or even the Amazon — but now thanks to Miss Klipfel’s class, there is a connection, and even the most exotic places seem a bit more attainable,” Ruzo writes.

Furthermore, her work will become part of the Boiling River Project’s conservation advocacy lessons used in Peruvian schools to show kids how extraordinary the Boiling River is.

It’s so extraordinary that the science community didn’t know of it until some 15 years ago.

Ruzo remembers as a child his grandfather telling him about a river that boiled.

Years later in college, he asked a preeminent academic if such a place existed and the answer was: No such place exists, and it’s ludicrous to think it would.

Not long thereafter, Ruzo was eating dinner with his aunt and recounted the conversation at school and she said, “Oh yes, the Boiling River does exist.”

He reached out to native people who live in the area of the river, the Asháninka tribe, and after two years of inquiries, the local shaman approved the study. It has been ongoing for more than a decade.

The Indigenous word for the river is Shanay-TimPishka. It means boiled with the heat of the sun.

Klipfel has on display in her class beautiful handmade textiles from native craftspeople she met on her trip.

The patterns and subjects tell a story related to connections with nature. The Boiling River is considered sacred and healing — alive.

Among Klipfel’s exploration team was a Shipibo-Konibo woman, a teacher, Karina Garcia.

Klipfel has an exquisite pair of snakepatterned earrings the woman made.

“One of the most fascinating things was the way traditional Indigenous knowledge and modern science were interwoven during our expedition and where we were in the jungle,” Klipfel says.

Klipfel plans to assemble a “Voices of the Amazon” audio project that will include icaros, sacred songs of healing sung by the Asháninka.

This is the second time that Klipfel has been selected to experience earthly wonders to share with students and others.

In the fall of 2023, she traveled with National Geographic to Patagonia, an icy remote location at the southern tip of South America.

Her mom, Paula, a retired elementary school teacher, was the substitute teacher, and the class — the whole school — interacted daily with Miss Klipfel.

This summer’s trip was an Explorers Club Flag Expedition. They brought Flag No. 114, which had previously traveled to the summit of Mount Everest and the bottom of the Mariana Trench — the deepest ocean depth — and the moon.

The two trips built on each other. “Learning about the land and the glaciers and sea level rise and climate change and working with naturalists when I was in Patagonia absolutely prepared me for the Amazon,” Klipfel says.

And having been a full-fledged field team member in the Amazon allows her to show her students what field science really looks like.

The president of The Explorers Club, Richard Wiese, says that teachers are among the most powerful storytellers we have.

“When they step into the field and take part in real science, they bring back more than facts — they bring back wonder, possibility and the spark that can ignite the next great mind,” Wiese says. “There’s no better story to tell than the one you’ve lived yourself.”

A prime lesson that Klipfel took from her travels, and a lesson she hopes to impart to her students, is that there is much to the world that we do not know and much to learn.

Also, do not be deterred by doubters.

“Follow your curiosity because you don’t know where it will take you,” Klipfel says.

The North Andover native has another adventure in store for 2026.

She found out in August that she was selected for a Fulbright Teacher Exchange Award. In December, she will find out in which host country she will be teaching, sometime between March and August 2026.