Meet the Iowa Science Teacher Who Runs Class From an Ice Fishing Shack

Every spring, the same question pops up in Jason Hoff’s chat window: Are you doing maple syrup yet?

Hoff is a physical science teacher at Iowa Virtual Academy (IAVA), and his students know what’s coming once the weather breaks. He’ll grab a tap, a tube, and a milk jug, head outside to a maple tree, and walk them through the sap collection process live on camera. The whole thing looks almost too easy, and that’s exactly what hooks them.

It’s simple enough that families try it themselves. Hoff regularly hears from students afterward — a kid and their dad tapped a tree over the weekend, or a mom and daughter collected sap in the backyard. The students who speak up about it aren’t always the ones he expects. The maple syrup demo has a way of pulling in kids who rarely participate during a standard lesson.

The Mobile Office

Hoff lives in and teaches from Minnesota and spends most of his time outside of school hunting, fishing and camping. That lifestyle doesn’t stay behind when class starts. He’s delivered live lessons from what he calls his “mobile office” — sometimes an ice fishing shack on one of the state’s famous “10,000 lakes,” other times a campsite in the mountains.

During one trip, he had a clear view of a comet cutting across the sky above the ridgeline. He turned his camera toward it and let his students watch. The planned lesson took a backseat while the class talked about what they were seeing — what comets are, how they move, why this one was visible right then. None of it was planned.

“One thing that’s awesome about being a student at Iowa Virtual Academy is you’re not limited to one spot,” Hoff said.

Building Curiosity Into the Routine

The maple syrup demo and the mobile office moments stand out, but Hoff’s real method is quieter than that. He builds outdoor awareness into the everyday rhythm of his class through the kind of questions he asks at the top of each session. Instead of How was your day?, he gets specific.

• Did you shovel snow this weekend?
• Did you notice anything outside yesterday?
• Tell me a story about what you did outdoors?

The questions are low-stakes, conversational and repeated often enough that students start paying attention to the world around them without being told to, so they can come to class with something to say. Hoff compares the approach to a radio jingle—you hear it enough times, and eventually it sticks.

He also keeps an eye on science news, like a planet visible to the naked eye, an unusual weather pattern, or a seasonal shift, and folds it into his lessons whenever the timing lines up.

“For me, yes, there is Earth Day, but why isn’t it every day?” Hoff asks.

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