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Daniel Barth A telescope owner since childhood and an active astronomer for more than 40 years, Dr. Daniel Barth's personal goal as an educator is to inspire students to apply what they study to solve real problems. He believes "science is a verb" and encourages students to build their roller coasters, rocket cars and even their own aircraft. A 22-year teaching veteran, Dr. Barth is the author of the four-week Maurice on the Moon program, an adventure book about a young boy growing up in a lunar colony. The program includes hands-on activities and experiments based on the story. The program is so successful that school districts in California, New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Arkansas and Florida are now using Dr. Barth's "science through literature" approach to teaching. |
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Brian Hopper As a trained scientist, Brian Hopper hopes to demonstrate the enjoyment and excitement of science by reaching students through various methods of instruction. One of his favorite teaching tools is right outside his Hoopa Valley High School classroom, located along the Trinity River on California's largest Indian reservation. Hopper enjoys letting students interact with nature, which led to the construction of the school's greenhouse and a current project of designing an interpretive garden. He also reinforces students' connection with the river by raising salmon in the classroom and via a field trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. "For me, the most rewarding thing about teaching is the creativity you can express in this work, which is stimulated by your pupils," says Hopper, who has taught for the past five years. "In every class you can discover science through their eyes." |
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Larry Madrigal Larry Madrigal challenges his students' capabilities as he fosters their growth and development from a scientific perspective. A 21-year veteran educator, Madrigal encourages students to pursue independent, original scientific investigations. More than 20 of his students have had their research widely published. In fact, one of his student's projects, the "Abundance and Diversity of Meiofauna at Shell Beach, CA," was recently among just 25 featured at the Southern California Regional Junior Science and Humanities Symposium at the University of California-Irvine. To encourage more students to follow suit, Madrigal procured funds to develop the Saint Joseph High School Science Research Institute where students earn $1,000 stipends for their summer research projects. Madrigal is a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching. |
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Brian Philhour During his five-year teaching career, Byron Philhour returns to his favorite quote by Albert Einstein: "Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it." Now in his sixth year of teaching high school physics, astronomy, engineering and computer science, Philhour encourages his students to take ownership of their personal learning experience by offering complex, real-life projects and lessons including a semester-long student simulation of the Apollo 11 mission and a hands-on fabrication project in which students build a working tin-can, hot-air engine from scratch. A self-described lifelong learner, Philhour makes use of the energy and excitement he, himself, feels in designing and implementing new lessons and projects to sustain a vigorous program of curriculum review and renewal. |
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Lance Powell Lance Powell loves hooking kids into science by engaging them in activities that arouse their curiosity. He combines relevant hands-on, in-class inquiry labs with rigorous fieldwork, using a variety of different learning styles. In his environmental science class, for example, students focus on a highly toxic neighborhood. Using every day materials, they design a 3D scaled landscape, including a transportation system and a way to grow food, generate electricity, manage waste and prevent pollution. The students then present their model and water quality data to the local Public Utilities Commission. "Students who otherwise would not be taking my course are now passing at higher levels in comparison with traditional chemistry classes," says Powell, now in his 11th year of teaching. "They're surpassing a college requirement which, for many, can be a real obstacle." Powell also designed an Environmental Analysis Through Chemistry course, acknowledged by the University of California-Berkeley as a college prep lab science course. And he's working with the university to allow his environmental chemistry curriculum to be taught in any California high school. |
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Michael Wing Michael Wing teaches the Revolution of Core Knowledge (ROCK) program to 100 ninth and tenth graders each year. The program is so popular that there's a waiting list, with students drawn by lottery. Because Wing encourages his students to take their studies to a higher level, they consistently outperform their peers. In the Disease Project, for example, instead of simply writing a paper on, say, tuberculosis, Wing has them create a timeline showing the disease through history, build an annotated 3D model of how the disease works in the body, write narratives from fictional patients' points of view and participate in a "debate" to see who can get the most "funding" for research and prevention. His students take similar approaches to other subjects. "In traditional classes, you can get straight As merely by doing what you're told and having a good work ethic," says Wing, who has taught for the past 10 years. "But through ROCK, we reward initiative, creativity, engagement, teamwork and coping with ambiguity." |
