Mary Fabian presents a classroom of Advanced Placement Earth Science students with an electric kettle, an air purifier, and a desk lamp, plus some more exotic appliances like a mug warmer and a wax melter. “Ladies and gentlemen and everyone else,” she announces, “we are going to use these things called power meters.” Her students efficiently break into small groups and start gathering data on the wattage of these electrical devices, getting some incidental hair-drying done along the way. Fabian cheerfully strolls around the room, checking on the students and guiding them into conversations about how adults actually use electricity when they live in their own apartments and are responsible for the bills. The room buzzes with electricity — some of it from the sockets in the wall, some of it from the inquisitive vibe she’s fostered.

Later, in her office on the second floor of the Science, Art, and Technology Building, Fabian makes two cups of tea and sits down for a wide-ranging conversation. She’s been inspiring Upper School science students for over two decades and currently teaches both AP Earth Science and ninth-grade physics. Her shelves are filled with a library of books germane to those classes, ranging from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring to Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax — plus a bound copy of her own master’s thesis, titled “The Architecture of Methanotroph Biofilms in Landfill Cover Soils.”

What aspect of the Portrait of the Latin Leader speaks to you?

Curious Learner. I so value the trait of intellectual curiosity in a person. If I meet somebody and they start talking to me about, say, the life cycle of the stag beetle, I’m thinking, “This is going to be good.” I love when people care about things.

What do you do to awaken curiosity in your students?

In the physics curriculum, there’s a lot of Socratic questioning, when I’ll ask open-ended questions like “Why do you think that is?” Or something will happen and I’ll say, “That’s interesting,” and walk away. The students will say, “She didn’t tell us what the answer was. I guess we need to figure it out.” The main thing I do is model how much I freaking love science. I will nerd out and tell them about projects I do at home, like keeping goats.

Tell us about the goats.

The story of my life is “How hard could it be?” I just jump in and do stuff.

Ten years ago, at my old house, I had three-quarters of an acre and my backyard was very overgrown. I looked into renting goats to get it cleaned out, and it cost $1,500 for six weeks. And then I discovered that it was $100 to buy a goat. So I went to a livestock auction in Cabarrus County and I bought three goats. We put them in the backyard, which had just been fully privacy-fenced, and went out to lunch. When we came back, they had escaped: the first of many times they got out. They cleaned out the backyard to the point where there was nothing but bare dirt, so I gave them to a friend of a friend who had a farm.

Around that time, I met a couple of beekeepers and decided to give beekeeping a try. I did the Mecklenburg County Beekeeping School, I got a good mentor, and then I bought some bees and just did it. I was obsessed with the biology of bees: queens can live for five years, but a worker bee in the height of summer lives about six weeks. And every part of their lifecycle is a different job. When they first emerge from the cell, they become nurse bees and they take care of the larvae, and as they get older, they become foragers.

Do you still keep bees?

When my kid graduated from college in 2017, I went to help them move out of their apartment, and when I came back, both hives were empty. It’s called absconding: sometimes bees decide that they want a different living situation. 

That seems extremely on-the-nose: you had a child moving on to the next stage in life and the bees left too.

I never thought about that! Being an engineer, I’m very literal: I don’t think in allegory or metaphor.

What led you to teaching?

My first degree was in history, but my second degree was in civil engineering with a classical studies minor and my master’s is in civil engineering. I was an engineer and I was a single mom. I went to my kid, Kelly, and said, “I’m at a junction here. I can continue as an engineer and work long hours and we’ll have more money, and we can afford different experiences, but I will not have a lot of time with you. Or I have an option to do another thing: I won’t have a lot of money, but I’ll have a lot more time with you and we’ll be together.”

Kelly said, “I want to spend time with you.” And that changed my life. I served as an AmeriCorps member for a year: I worked at Second Harvest, I worked at International House, and I helped run an after-school program for at-risk youth here in Mecklenburg County. At the end of that year, I walked into a CMS job fair and because of my engineering degree, I got hired to teach AP Physics. After six years at CMS, I went to Cabarrus County for a year, which was very rural: they had Drive Your Tractor to School Day. Eleven years ago, I applied for a physics teacher position at Charlotte Latin. They called me back and asked, “If we made a new position for you, would you take it? We want to start an AP environmental science program.” I said, “I’m your girl.”

What were you like in high school?

I was the nerdy, weird kid, and then I went to the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, the public boarding school for gifted and talented students in the STEM fields, and I found my people. When I was at that school, living in Durham, I went to a lot of concerts in Chapel Hill: I was a big metalhead.

What new passions do you have outside the classroom?

I’m really into crystals—not on a metaphysical level, but how the shape of the crystal reflects the atomic structure at its base. I’m also really getting into plants. I craft a lot, and I’m so happy when I’m in a fabric store, surrounded by color and texture. I like to go to estate sales and buy crafting supplies. Recently, I was at an antique store that was going out of business: they had these beautiful dyed leather hides, which usually would sell for $250 or $300, for $15 to $20 each. I bought 27 of them. Do I know how to do leatherwork? No. But how hard can it be?

How do you know when something is clicking with your students?

Honestly, it’s all body language and the look in their eyes. I will find multiple ways to explain something until the lightbulb turns on. I tell people, “I am a professional explainer of things.” 

Do you have a favorite part of the environmental science curriculum?

I love our unit on land and water use, which has a good bit on agriculture. I get super into it: I’m really into land use and land development, so we’ll talk about farm bill policy and overuse of water aquifers. I love when students finally realize that science is not a set of facts to memorize, it’s a process that we undergo to learn about the world. I don’t expect my ninth graders to walk out of the class as full-fledged physicists, but I want them to be able to think like scientists.