Introducing Avon's 2012 Teacher of the Year [VIDEO]

Avon administrators and teachers surprised John Mason on Friday as the 2012 Teacher of the Year at Avon Middle School.

"I'm really just a representative of a lot of incredible teachers here," Mason told Patch. "I have teachers that I've work with on my team, my seventh grade team, my department that are equally if not more deserving of this recognition. I learn from my coleagues every day and I'm humbled by it."

He has taught seventh-grade science there for 11 years and has been an educator for 15.

Mason's education career started outside the classroom, running backpacking and river rafting trips out of Utah and Oregan. His work as an outdoor educator was focused on achaeology and in Oregan he was employed at an outdoor science school.

He transitioned into classroom teaching at a private day school in Denver, CO as a high school science teacher. His West Hartford routes brought him back to Connecticut and now Mason lives in Canton.

His favorite bumper sticker holds the message "Science is a Verb" and his lessons emphasize "inquiry, action and discovery," according to a press release submitted to Patch by Donna Nestler-Rusack.

His classes include a wealth of hands-on activities, such as "dissecting frogs, testing the environmental preferences of earthworms, examining the flora/fauna in the woods behind the school, using a sand-and-water table to explore dynamics, or discovering how one's weight changes but their mass remains constant going up and down an elevator," Nestler-Rusack said in the press release.

Mason established a Visiting Science guest speaker series at the middle school, bringing in meteorologists, orthopedic surgeons, physical and occupational therapists, and astro-photographers to talk about they use science in their careers, according to the press release.

He said he will apply to be Connecticut Teacher of the Year in the 2012-13 school year.