EDUCATION FOUNDATION
2008 Above and Beyond Award Recipients
Patricia Slater and Nancy Yocom de Romero
Barbieri Elementary School
Patricia and Nancy are outstanding, innovative elementary educators whose care for their students causes them to constantly challenge themselves. Five years ago, they partnered with the Engineering is Elementary (EiE) project at its inception to help create a research-based, standards-based, and classroom-tested curriculum that integrates engineering and technology concepts and skills with elementary science topics. Interesting engineering design challenges invite children to design, create, and improve possible solutions to real-world problems.
As pilot teachers for EiE, Pat and Nancy have helped shape the vision of how the new Massachusetts engineering standards fit into elementary curricula and have connected engineering to mathematics, science, social studies, and language arts.
Their efforts are producing astounding results: the pre- and post-assessments that they administer as part of their EiE engineering and technology efforts show that their students are significantly more likely to understand what technology is and what engineers do than a control sample that does not use their EiE developed materials. Their excited students enter class in the morning asking when they are doing engineering that day—their children’s love of this subject is infectious. Congratulations Patricia and Nancy!
Gary Garber & Nick Dent
Boston University Academy
Thirty students at Boston University Academy are members of the BUA Robotics Team. The team is mentored by Gary Garber and Nick Dent who teach the students physics, technology, engineering, programming, and CAD, all through the medium of building robots.
Gary and Nick’s students work through the engineering process by identifying the problem, debating the solutions, drafting sketches, building models, and then CAD designs for the actual robot before moving onto a prototyping stage (all in line with the Massachusetts Frameworks). Robotics brings science and technology alive for their students who previously had not thought of themselves as ‘science’ students.
To spread the message of their work to other schools in Boston, Nick and Gary have taught their students to produce podcasts, develop web pages, and lead professional development workshops which have been attended by students and teachers from over 20 schools in the Boston area. Their motto is “Empower Boston and Beyond.” Their outreach efforts have been recognized at the FIRST Boston Regional Competition by earning the Engineering Inspiration Award, the second highest award given by FIRST. Congratulations Gary and Nick!
Charles (Charlie) Lindgren
Gates Intermediate School
At the 2007 National Science Teachers Association’s National Convention, Charlie attended a workshop on coastal processes given by a teacher from South Carolina. The presentation inspired him to think differently about how he approached his curriculum, and with a little over $100 of his own money, his science class was about to be transformed.
First, Charlie sent out requests online for people to send him sand samples from Florida to Maine. Over three days students performed a multitude of research tasks on the sample received including: sorting it through a sieve screen; calculating the percentage of each mineral using a random sample; taking microphotographs of the sample; and entering data results onto a webpage.
The hands-on project excites middle school students about Science and provides real world synthesis of data that they learn is not always “clean”. In this experiment few trends are shown to work completely from North to South which demonstrates to the students that nothing is perfect – and isn’t that what science discovery is all about? Congratulations Charlie!
Valerie Bell
Nauset Regional High School
Valerie strives to offer students opportunities that engage them in authentic science experiences and hopes they will be of value to them across all academic subjects and their life. To reach her goal she has developed several courses from Saltwater Ecosystems, focused on the Nauset Marsh and the Nauset Barrier beach system , to Freshwater ecosystems, focused on the study of groundwater, kettle Ponds, Vernal pools and a local river and its watershed.
From water testing and calculating the biotic index of the river using macroinvertebrates the students get real hands on experience that peaks their interest in science and discovery. The classes have no prerequisites so any student can take them regardless of their past science experiences.
Students who take these classes often decide to study science in college. For some students the classes are the only science class where they have been able to experience success. Congratulations Valerie!
Katie Clarke, Jennifer Golenia and Sharon Pickering
Pollard Middle School
Katie, Jennifer and Sharon are responsible for revamping and energizing the science curriculum at Pollard Middle School. Since they voluntarily implanted themselves into various organizations such as the Lift Program, LEGOS Robotics and Tufts CEEO PCET, they have added a variety of new opportunities for their students and fellow teachers.
New hands on projects including Designing and Building Bridges, Hydraulic Robotic Arms, and Earthquake Proof Towers have taught students how to utilize the engineering design process and how it is implemented in the real world. Through these hands on projects students are noticeably more engaged, invested and excited in what they are learning. The school has also noticed an increase in the number of correctly answered Technology and Engineering questions on the 8th grade science MCAS and credit Katie, Jennifer and Sharon’s efforts for this increase.
The ever-growing nature of engineering and technology and the increasing demand for jobs in those fields makes it more important than ever to generate interest in these areas of study. Their team has designed a curriculum that will spark the interest of middle school students and will hopefully lead them into careers associated with engineering and technology. Congratulations Katie, Jennifer, and Sharon!
Lisa Henderson & Robin Citron
Tech Boston Academy
At TechBoston Academy, a pilot school in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, two teachers took charge and empowered students to take their technology passions to the next level. Lisa Henderson and Robin Citrin, a science and history teacher respectively, dreamed up a concept pushing student engagement beyond its limits.
The vision centered around Tech Boston Academy’s plan to organize the Horace Mann School’s Network Technology Conference, Lisa and Robin provided mentoring, coaching, guidance, and support to a 14-student planning team.
What they came up with was an organizational model in which most of the primary decision-making rest in the laps of the students; primarily 11th graders. They chose the theme, Fierce Expression through Technology, in an effort to showcase the creative ways students were channeling their energy to learn, utilize, and empower themselves via technology.
Lisa and Robin went above and beyond in their role as teacher to also become designated drivers, deal-makers, negotiators, marketers, and fund-raisers.
The result? Over 900 students who attended the conference were allowed to experience hands-on workshops on topics including music technology/production to digital portfolios, logo design, computer repair, claymation, movie-making, sound editing, robotics, newsletter publishing, programming, and web design. Congratulations Lisa and Robin!
