High Expectations Teacher Takes Internet-Savvy Students Along As He Sets Out To Climb Mount Everest

Students at Stahl Junior High School are following Jason Edwards every step of the way up Mount Everest: He’s sharing the challenge with daily Internet communications.

Edwards, 35, is leading the eight-member U.S.-Canadian Colliers Lotus Notes Everest Expedition to the mountain’s 29,028-foot summit this week.

The climbers are communicating through World Wide Web sites with students at about 600 schools across the United States and Canada - including Stahl, where Edwards teaches typing or “keyboarding,” and Madrona Elementary School in Seattle.

What they learn is spilling over to other subjects, said Stahl science teacher Paul Gobel, who is using the climb to teach anatomy, physiology, physics and meteorology.

“My class is doing a resource paper on mountain climbing, and we have some students looking at the different animals in that area. There are even a couple of students doing a paper on the Yeti,” he said, referring to legendary furry beasts reputed to walk upright like humans - and like the Northwest’s legendary Sasquatch.

The expedition is sponsored by VR Didatech, an educational software company in Burnaby, British Columbia. Didatech is operating the Web sites.

Colliers, a multinational commercial real estate corporation based in Vancouver, British Columbia, became an expedition sponsor - along with Boston-based computer software company Lotus Notes - because Colliers chairman John McLernon saw it as a way to unite his company operations, spokesman Michael Dingle said.

Edwards has been to Everest twice, in 1991 as a climber and in 1994 as a deputy leader.

“He has been employed by us for 15 years as a guide,” said Jerry Lynch, president and co-owner of Rainier Mountaineering Inc.

“He previously worked for a guide service on Mount Adams. When he joined us, we knew we had a great gem, a great leader. He’s climbed mountains in South America and the Himalayas, and he’s led expeditions up Mount McKinley in Alaska.”

Students at Stahl know that experience isn’t always enough when facing unpredictable conditions, Principal Mike Warr said.

“Our students are aware that he may not come back. That is part of their learning about acceptance,” he said.

That awareness has increased with the approach of the May 10 anniversary of last year’s Mount Everest disaster. Eight climbers - including Seattle guide Scott Fischer, 40, and postal worker Doug Hansen, 44, of Renton - died in a storm.