Thomas John Kearney
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Thomas Kearney attended the University of Illinois in Champaign, and graduated with academic honors in 1975. While at the University of Illinois he majored in PE with minors in Driver Education and Biology. He also played football and was a 2 year letterman in Track. After graduating he became a teacher at A.A. Stagg High School in Palos Hills, Illinois, and eventually transferred to Victor J. Andrew High School in Tinley Park where he taught Biology, Environmental Education, and a class he created himself called ”Animal Behavior”. He was a Teacher Adviser for Brookfield Zoo for a number of years and served on the Board of Directors of the Illinois Science Teacher Association representing the suburban areas of Chicago. As a teacher, Kearney was a speaker for various seminars and conferences and also coached football and track for over 25 years. He retired from teaching in 2009. After retiring, he and his wife founded a non-for-profit called ”Earth Stewards”, which he uses to help teach environment and nature classes for schools and the park district.Kearney’s writing career began after he retired. He first wrote ”Zoo-a-logical Math” and then ”Zoo-a-logical Math Junior”. In both books he compares various animals and humans in athletic events using math. ”Zoo-a-logical Math” is for grades 7-college, and ”Zoo-a-logical Math Junior” is for grades 4-12. He also makes various presentations related to his books and the ideas behind his writing.The books, ”Zoo-a-logical Math” and ”Zoo-a-logical Math Junior”, were born when Kearney was teaching Animal Behavior class. Students would ask him various questions about animals, and sometimes he would create some math problems that would help answer the questions. He found that when he created these ‘animal math questions’ the students would really be focused in on the math.
Zoo-a-logical math :