By Alli Avola

Although she is fairly new here, you have most likely seen Ms. Purdy, a passionate biology teacher, in the halls of Westborough High School. While she is only on her third year of teaching here at WHS, Ms. Purdy has been teaching for a total of nineteen years. Ms. Purdy’s favorite part of her job is building relationships with her students. Her passion for teaching young people and getting them interested in science keeps her coming back year to year.

Interestingly, she did not always have her passion for teaching or science. While growing up on the South Shore of Massachusetts, Ms. Purdy’s love for animals sparked her desire to want to become a veterinarian. It was not until later on in her life when Ms. Purdy realized that her true passion was teaching. “Good teachers don’t find teaching; teaching finds them. I was a long term sub in a different district and realized that I made a big impact on students that normally did not like science. I was pretty much hooked after that.”

Her realization for her love of science was a process as well. While attending Brockton High School, Ms. Purdy liked science, but she never loved it. She believes that her inability to thoroughly enjoy the subject was influenced by her unenthusiastic teachers. While attending college at UMass Amherst, she began to develop an appreciation for science. “When science became more specific, I liked it more.”

Ms. Purdy enjoyed the freedom of being able to choose the specific type of science that she wished to study and learn about that type in great depth. Although she does love most sciences, Ms. Purdy’s favorite type of science is biology. “It feels the most connected. It is more challenging for me to make connections in Physics and Chemistry.” She continues, “I feel like biology is the most connected to your everyday experiences.”

Science wasn’t the only part of college that she loved; Ms. Purdy also loved her school’s marching band. As a member of the band and, more specifically, the color guard, she developed a few talents. Ms. Purdy has the ability to spin a rifle, a saber, and a flag, all thanks to the time she spent in the color guard throughout college.

Another talent of hers is one that most people most likely aren’t aware of. Ms. Purdy does not speak any other languages… human languages that is. Although she may not be multilingual,  Purdy can do bird calls. She has the ability to replicate the calls of nearly every song bird in Massachusetts.

Ms. Purdy’s mother is from the Philippines and, although she has never visited the country, this background added a great deal of Filipino culture into both her youth and adulthood. As a young girl, she learned Filipino dances, and presently, she enjoys cooking Filipino food.

When she was young, Ms. Purdy’s life did not simply consist of school and family. For ten years, from ages eight to eighteen, Ms. Purdy was a runway model and was an active participant in many pageants. By modeling and participating in the pageants, she made a fair amount of money that paid for college expenses and her first car. She also made lifelong friends and many memories. From modeling, to working in a morgue, to working for the Department of the Interior and teaching, Ms. Purdy has had a wide variety of jobs and experiences. One job that she enjoys is being a loving wife and mother to her husband, Dave, and her two children, Georgia (9) and Steven (6).

Ms. Purdy enjoys performing many educational, yet fun labs with her students to enhance the lessons that she teaches, but there are two labs that stick out to her the most. One of her favorite labs to perform is DNA transformation. In this experiment, students take a gene and put it into an organism, ultimately resulting in the organism expressing that gene. The second is a viral transmission activity where students transmit HIV around the room.

When she isn’t performing intriguing labs in the classroom, Ms. Purdy enjoys tending to her garden, hiking, reading, water skiing, and travelling. Her favorite vacation that she has been on was to Hawaii because of its utter beauty and unique ecosystem. If she could go anywhere in the world, Ms. Purdy would love to travel to Australia. She would love to see the marsupials (types of mammals such as kangaroos, koalas, etc.) in their natural habitat and experience Australia’s lively culture.

When asked to describe herself in three words, Purdy came up with academic, dedicated, and warm. Whether she is planning a fun lab for her students to perform or, traveling to faraway places, Ms. Purdy’s passion for biology and science never fades.