Job Title

Science educator

Key responsibilities

In our middle school team I develop and coordinate two of our interdisciplinary thematic units. The English River Watershed project is involved in having students learn about our watershed and to develop inquiry projects related to it. I am also responsible for our space science thematic unit. I have introduced Image Processing to our curriculum and we are currently integrating its use along with GIS.

Department or workgroup

Seventh grade team member

I grew up in a rural community outside of a metropolitan area in Iowa and was strongly influenced by many excellent teachers in my school system. I had many outdoor experiences and I feel a strong connection with the Midwest and an appreciation for an agrian lifestyle. I attended a small liberal arts college, Coe College and appreciated the breadth of intellectual discoveries. My first fulltime employment was in a residential treatment center for adolescents and I realized that working with young people was a viable career option. I returned to a university setting at Northeast Missouri State University and completed my graduate work in Special Education. My first teaching job was in a special self-contained classroom for Behavior Disordered students. As I centered myself on developing new and broader teaching skills, I obtained my certification in science education. I moved into a regular classroom in the Mid-Prairie school system as a science educator. I have worked with many projects, ideas and have been successful in many endeavors in working with middle level students. I have been a state finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching. Our classroom was chosen as a demonstration site for middle level science teaching. I was involved with meeting regularly with other area science educators to introduce and model inquiry learning, higher order thinking skills, and constructivism. I have been involved with many space science programs including NEWMAST. I was chosen to be a American Astronomical Society- Teacher Resource Agent as well as NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab Galileo Europa Mission and Solar System Educator teacher resource agent. I have completed my Ed.S (Specialist) degree in Science Education from the Science Education Center at the University of Iowa. In addition I have completed National Teacher Board Certification in the area of Early Adolescence/Science. I have been actively involved with curriculum development in my local school district. I am looking forward to improving my teaching skills day-by-day and year-by-year. It has and will continue to be one of the major focuses of my life. It is one of the activities which answers the question- Why is Christopher here?