Erin Towns is a digital and drone photographer based in Augusta, Maine, specializing in polar research and landscape photography. She is a National Geographic Grosvenor Teacher Program Fellow, a Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms alumna, and a PolarTREC teacher researcher. With 25 years of classroom experience, she has collaborated with educators, scientists, and youth across the U.S. and throughout the Arctic designing hands-on, interdisciplinary programs that blend history, macroeconomics, Earth and climate science, polar technology, and visual arts. Erin leads the PolarSTEAM Field School, a program she founded to bring high school students into Arctic environments to learn directly from scientists, cultural experts, and local communities. Her work focuses on helping teens understand how photography, drone imaging, and creative science communication can clarify complex Earth and climate systems and strengthen their ability to share what they learn. Her photography is rooted in curiosity about the Arctic, Maine, and the connections between people, landscapes, and Earth systems. She documents details that reveal larger environmental stories and integrates her images into youth field programs, giving students meaningful tools to communicate scientific ideas. Erin uses her photography to make science accessible and to encourage people to understand what’s changing and why it matters. Drawing from Maine’s natural beauty and the polar regions where she works, Erin connects distant climates to local realities. Her photographs and field programs help communities see how environmental change in the Arctic shapes life at home, strengthening awareness, understanding, and action.