My name is Jessica Fries-Gaither, and I am an elementary resource specialist at the Ohio State University, where I serve as project director for Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears. Beyond Penguins is a free, online professional development magazine for elementary teachers dedicated to increasing knowledge of the polar regions and to integrating science and literacy through best practices.

Like many of the other presenters, I have always been interested in science. I grew up in a family that encouraged exploration and learning. Frequent library trips fueled a lifelong passion for reading, and a countless classes and workshops cultivated a wide variety of interests.

When I enrolled at the University of Notre Dame, I planned to major in biology and thought I’d become a geneticist. But after two tough years, I decided that the lifestyle of the laboratory and the molecular side of biology really wasn’t for me. Instead, I gravitated towards classes like ecology, evolution, and population genetics and even spent a summer doing environmental fieldwork. While I loved these courses (and the anthropology I was studying as a second degree), I still wasn’t sold on the idea of a Ph.D. and research.

I decided to spend two years after graduation teaching with the Alliance for Catholic Education. Run by Notre Dame, the program places teachers in underserved Catholic schools across the southern United States. I was placed as a middle school math and science teacher in Memphis, TN. Despite the enormous challenges of the experience, I realized that as an educator, I could capitalize on my diverse interests and creativity. And so, after graduating from ACE with my M.Ed., I decided to continue teaching.

I moved to Anchorage, AK, where I taught for six more years: one year of 8th grade science and then five years at a Catholic elementary school where I taught self-contained 6th and 4th grades as well as a year as a math/science specialist for 5th and 6th grades. Working in an elementary school was a wonderful experience, affording me the opportunity to teach other content areas and work with a new age group. During this time, I was also able to indulge my love of travel and culture and grow professionally by participating in seminars to Japan and South Africa and Botswana.

Now, after another cross-country move, I am out of the classroom yet still in the field of education. I am enjoying new challenges and opportunities: learning about polar science and current research and supporting teachers by providing exemplary science and literacy resources.

Even if you can’t participate in our web seminar, please be sure to check out our cyberzine and blog!

Karen Kalumuck, presenter for the NSDL web seminar, Small Creatures Under the Microscope, has had a lifelong desire to learn and teach science at all age levels. From the university classroom to the science center lab at the Exploratorium, Karen has dedicated herself to making science exciting for the audiences she serves. Learn how Karen became a skilled “translator” of science:

My name is Karen Kalumuck, and I’m a scientist and educator at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

Growing up in Ohio, I enjoyed school from the first day of kindergarten. In high school it was a joy to experience “real” labs, and we had some advanced classes that cemented my interest in Biology. In fact, learning about “how life works” was about the coolest thing that I could imagine, and I couldn’t believe that everybody didn’t want to be a Biologist.

In undergrad school at Bowling Green State University, I became fascinated with bacteria and other microbes and earned my B.S. degree in microbiology. During my senior year, I had the opportunity to work with Drosophila geneticist, Dr. Ron Woodruff, and that experience rekindled my love of genetics. I had now set my ultimate career goal as becoming a college professor, still melding my loves of science and education. At Rice University, I earned my Ph.D. in Biology by analyzing the ribosomal RNA genes of Drosophila.

Feeling a great yearning to be more involved in education on a daily basis, I spent five years at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, and loved teaching, working with students, and introducing them to the joys of research.

Many years later, I became less interested in conducting research and teaching in a “traditional” educational setting, and more interested in scientific literacy for the general public. I was hired by the Exploratorium Teacher Institute (TI) to develop their first professional development program in Biology for middle school and high school teachers.

I’ve now been here nearly 15 years and love it! My work draws on all of my experience and passion as both an educator and a scientist, and I can best describe what I do as a “translator” of science for the public. The teachers that I work with are the most creative, dedicated, enthusiastic people that I know. At the Exploratorium, I’ve had the opportunity to author the Exploratorium’s first hands-on biology-focused book for teachers, “Human Body Explorations ”. I’ve also served as a “resource” for other departments, giving public presentations, acting as an “in house expert” for webcasts, and providing content expertise on the museum’s websites and publications. I feel lucky to work at a place with such a rich and varied staff of artists, scientists, and educators – I learn a tremendous amount from everyone. I can’t imagine working any place else.

The classroom activities that are a part of the Exploratorium’s microscope imaging station are a great example of the collaborative nature of our work. Our TI alumni teachers helped in the conception and development of the activities, as well as their organization. My colleague Kristina Yu tirelessly shot and modified images to fit the teacher’s requests. This collaboration between scientists and teachers, and repeated classroom testing and revision, make our activities classroom- friendly and ready to go! We’ve not found another source that uses microscopic images as the basis of classroom activities. Kristina’s images and videos are among the best that you will find on the web, making them a wonderful addition to any classroom curriculum.

Be sure to check us out at www.exploratorium.edu!

As a teenager, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But I did know what I wanted to study.

I lived in the Washington, D.C., suburbs until I was 13. So it was a shock to move to rural upstate New York. But soon the woods and lakes and farms won me over. I attended the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry so I could get my fill of natural sciences, particularly botany and ecology. There, I also developed a strong environmental ethic that lead to a lifelong dedication to protecting the natural systems upon which we all depend.

While I enjoyed all the science, I realized that research alone wasn’t enough to save the planet. I knew that information is the key to the realm, but we already had a lot of science that we weren’t using very effectively to clean up the planet. So midway through college I took up a minor in communications, figuring that would be a good way to recruit others to the cause.

I went on to spend the bulk of my career as an agricultural journalist, editing a magazine that helped farmers find ways to use fewer pesticides and take better care of their soil. When the Internet came along, I taught myself how to use that medium and ended up working in the Department of Horticulture at Cornell University. There I continue to help get the results of scientific studies into the hands of farmers, gardeners and others so that they can work toward more environmentally sound practices, mostly through these websites.

All along the way, I’ve loved plants and writing. And I continue those interests in my spare time by gardening and blogging. These interests also come together in efforts like the NSDL Flower Bulb Science Web Seminar.

Marcia Eames-Sheavly of the Garden-Based Learning Program at Cornell University and presenter for the NSDL Web Seminar:
Flower Bulb Science shares how she was able to combine her interests into a satisfying career:

When I was in high school, I admired my friends who seemed to know exactly what they wanted to do. I recall those that headed off into the world of business, law, or engineering, and they seemed so
– well, focused. At that time, I loved art classes, thought biology was fantastic, and I also entertained thoughts of becoming a social worker or therapist. Growing food was enjoyable too, so what about throwing organic farming into the mix? With all that opportunity, how on earth to choose?

I realized not long ago that all these interests have melded into one, wonderful career that I’m simply crazy about. At Cornell University, I provide statewide leadership and coordination of a multidisciplinary garden-based learning program for children and youth educators. As the youth program leader for the Cornell Garden-Based Learning Program, I develop curriculum and educational resource materials, and collaborate with other garden-based learning educators nation-wide to plan symposia and professional development opportunities for educators and volunteers. I collaborate with human development researchers and program evaluation specialists to examine youth and adult interactions in garden settings, community and youth development skills and assets gained in garden-based learning, as well as to conduct formative and summative evaluations of our programming efforts.

I am also a watercolor artist, and teach Horticulture 201: The Art of Horticulture, a course that explores plants both as a subject of art, and used in or as art, as well as offering special topics classes, web-based instruction in botanical illustration, and opportunities for independent study. Interacting with undergraduate and graduate students at Cornell University is a joy. The students bring creative and innovative perspectives to their work, whether we’re constructing a huge sculpture made of earth and grass; painting; or planning a public art project to be viewed from the air. I seem to learn something from them each day.

Marcia is also on the development team for The Bulb Project, a website full of engaging activities that utilize flower bulbs for cross-curricular teaching at all age levels.

I never figured I’d work so much of my career in science museums, but looking back it really comes as no surprise. The city park in the area that I grew up in is right next to what was then the Denver Museum of Natural History. Our family would go on picnics in the park on weekends in the early ‘70’s and at the time the museum was free to the public. While we lathered our barbecued hamburgers and hotdogs with copious amounts of ketchup, I would suss out which of my siblings (often my brother) I could coax into taking me over to the museum to see my three favorite exhibits: the scale model of the solar system, a collection of bird eggs ranging from wrens to ostriches, and the towering mastodon that looked as though it was charging through the darkened hall where it was displayed. I never grew tired of it, never grew tired of the entire museum and was always disappointed when we had to leave.

Today, the mastodon is still there, although it does not appear (to me at least) to be as menacing as it did over 30 years ago. What used to make me want to grab my brother for dear life as a kid, had always made me smile as I passed by the mastodon over the course of the 13 years that I worked in the education department at the museum, now known as the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

I had always been interested in science and intended to go to medical school, but ended up starting my career teaching for the Hall of Life Health Education Center, which eventually was incorporated into the museum. At the museum, you could be developing a class for pre-schoolers on animal adaptations, getting a briefing on the latest NASA mission, and walking through an exhibit on the Mayans—all in the same day. I feel very blessed to have worked in places with such rich opportunities for learning.

Working with NSDL is no different. My “classroom” has now become virtual and I’m continually learning new things. Our web seminar series through the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Le… is a great opportunity for professional development and building content knowledge provided by our experts from NSDL’s partnering organizations. I’m pretty spoiled: I get to learn with everyone else on these online programs, including where to find some really great resources mentioned on the seminars.

We often collaborate with some of the best museums and science centers in the country. Here are some great NSDL collections you can find from informal education science centers:

Lawrence Hall of Science
TryScience from New York Hall of Science
Science Bulletins from the American Museum of Natural H… The Exploratorium Digital Library

As our presenter for “Studying Genomes“, Rob DeSalle takes life as one big discovery after another. Here’s an excerpt from his biography from the AMNH Seminars on Science profiles:

As an undergraduate at the University of Chicago in the 1970s, Rob had vague plans of becoming a social worker. But frequent visits to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago eventually inspired him to appear in his advisor’s office where he announced that he wanted to study whales. His advisor, a molecular geneticist named James Shapiro, suggested that if Rob really wanted to study whales,
he should learn about genetics. Rob took his advice. “My academic career up to then had been very chaotic,” Rob says, but he found that the logic and order of genetics provided a structure for his wide-ranging interests. An undergraduate research project at the Field Museum on the genetics of leaf-eared mice left him completely hooked. After earning his B.A., he enrolled in a graduate program at Washington University in St. Louis, and received his Ph.D. in 1984.

One of the first papers Rob read as a graduate student described the sequencing of the first complete genome. Although the genome was that of a virus and not an animal, Rob, like many others, immediately saw the potential of DNA sequencing for studying molecular evolution, which then became his focus. Like many people interested in evolution, Rob studied the Drosophila fruit fly, because it can breed an entire new adult generation every two weeks and its DNA is relatively simple to decode. Rob says the best piece of advice (and the only one he claims to have followed) from his thesis advisor, Alan Templeton, was to choose a research subject that lives in a nice place, “because then you get to go there and collect them.” Fortunately for Rob, some of the most fascinating and diverse Drosophila, in terms of color, form, and behavior, live in Hawaii.

The Hawaiian Islands are an especially interesting place to study evolutionary biology because of their unique geological history. As the Pacific continental plate drifts toward Japan, volcanoes periodically erupt at a “hot spot,” leaving behind a chain of islands, with the oldest on one end and the newest on the other. What does this mean for biologists? Rob explains: “The age of each species of flies on the islands is different. And they’re differentiated in a really nice chronological order.”

Though other researchers had studied the effects of the Hawaiian Islands’ geological history on the evolution of Drosophila, Rob was among the first to do so using molecular genetics. His research caught the attention of Allan Wilson of the University of California, Berkeley, who is considered by many to be the father of modern molecular evolution. Wilson invited Rob to do a postdoctoral fellowship under him at Berkeley. “Allan wanted to be able to work on these flies with me, because I had a really neat system,” Rob says, “and I wanted to go to his lab because he had some great technology. He was on the cutting edge. If I wanted to do something with molecular genetics in his lab, I just had to tell him, and he would set it up for me. It was really great.”

My name is Lynn Diener and I work on the new Chemistry Education pathway. The Chemistry Education Digital Library (ChemEd DL) brings together a variety of innovative electronic resources for teaching Chemistry. We will highlight a number of these resources in our upcoming seminar, Chemistry Comes Alive II: Sticky Molecules and Folding Proteins.

I knew from the time I was very young that Science was the field for me. I grew up in Eastern Washington. As most children do, I loved to dig and play in the dirt. My best friend and I decided it would be fun to dig a hole in her lawn next to her house one day, to see what was there, we were hoping to find some worms for fishing. We dug for a few inches and came across something extraordinary, a layer of gray powdery dirt. It was so different from the dark brown dirt around it that we were instantly hooked on solving the mystery of the gray dirt. We mucked around with the gray dirt and found it to be quite distinct from the rest of the dirt, it was more powdery and less like clay. We decided to ask some experts (her parents) what this magical stuff was. That’s when we discovered that what we found was ash from the last explosion of Mount Saint Helen’s. The ash had traveled all the way from the coast to Eastern Washington. It had been so thick after the eruption that cars on the street couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of them, relying on the lights from the car in front of them to keep them on the road and out of the ditch. I think that was the start of my love for science and scientific inquiry.

I got my B.A. in Environmental Science from Bard College. I took a heavy course load in both biology and chemistry and found an abiding love of both sciences at that time. At the University of Wisconsin, Madison I got my PhD in Molecular and Environmental Toxicology. I wanted to work in a field that combined the study of biology and chemistry, because I found so much joy in both fields. The majority of my research focused on mercury, one of the most toxic metals known to man. I looked at the interactions of mercury with soil organic matter and soil microorganisms. Our focus was to better understand the chemistry of mercury in the environment. Ultimately though the better you understand the fate and transport of mercury in the environment the easier it is to avoid environmental exposure to mercury.

We hope to see you all at the Mole Day web-seminar. Happy Mole Day!

My name is Christina Symons and I am one of the geologists working on the ERESE Project (Enduring Resources for Earth Science Education, http://www.Earthref.org/ERESE). ERESE provides a digital collection rich with state of the art earth science data and images for the classroom, bringing students and teachers onboard virtual cruises and into the field. Anthony Koppers and I look forward to sharing some of our collection and one of the more controversial, hot topics that we, as marine geologists and geophysicists, investigate during our seminar “Hotspots, Plumes and LIPs: Everything’s Coming Up Igneous!”.

As you may learn during our presentation, growing up in Spring, TX, didn’t present many opportunities for much in the way of igneous rocks…nonetheless, I was always one of those “why” kids. Why is the sky blue? Why is that river flowing east and not west? Why is that rock shiny and this one so dull? Thanks to my parents who always encouraged and exemplified this inquisitive nature I grew to love science and appreciate the need for it in our everyday lives. As an undergraduate (Stanford University, BS 1993) I managed to take a broad sampling of general science classes – physics, chemistry, math – to keep my options open for a major. Declaring geology my junior year was a no-brainer after a fantastic introductory course. That decision opened more doors to adventure than I would have thought possible.

For the next two years of college I spent some weekdays and many weekends mapping along the Pacific coast, in the Sierra Nevada and in California’s Central Valley. My “classroom” was the great outdoors. Every day I was exploring how the earth works, its processes and history, and why it appears as it does today. (And how it may change tomorrow!)

As a graduate student my classroom was the deep, blue sea (University of Texas, MS, 1996; Scripps Institution of Oceanography, PhD, 2002). My first year in Austin I ended up onboard an Australian research vessel for 6 weeks in the Southern Ocean south of New Zealand. I began studying the Pacific-Australian plate boundary, a strike-slip boundary very similar to the San Andreas fault, but kilometers undersea. What an experience!!!! In San Diego, as if the view from my office a stone’s throw from the beach wasn’t good enough, I spent nearly 200 days at sea (and some below sea). I investigated how plates bend and break at subduction zones, skimmed the surface of a submerged guyot in Alvin, and dove in the Navy’s rescue submarines and operated unmanned vehicles off the coast of San Diego testing their worthiness as research instruments.

As my original “why” questions have evolved one thing has remained – my appreciation for the Earth and how humans affect her natural processes. We hope you enjoy learning a little bit about how the Earth works tonight. We certainly have!

Hello, everybody! Thanks for visiting the blog for the NSDL/NSTA Web Seminar 2007 Fall Series. My name is Bethany Carlson, and I worked with project director Sarita Nair-Pillai on the creation of the FunWorks NSDL collection.

A little about me:
I have a B.S. in engineering—I was one of those kids in high school whose social life revolved around science and design competitions, and majoring in anything else in college wasn’t ever a consideration. After college, though, I went looking for the reasons that my university classes were so lacking in diversity. I worked in a middle school for a couple of years, supporting the math and science teachers’ reform efforts, and then, inspired by the increasing appearance of engineering as a high school elective, I joined the Education Development Center to write curricula. At the time, a team at EDC was updating modules for the Ford Academy of Manufacturing Science (FAMS) program, which is now the Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies (http://www.fordpas.org/).

A little about the FunWorks (http://www.thefunworks.org):
The goal behind the FunWorks NSDL collection is to connect kids to a wide variety of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) careers and to show them how taking math and science classes now can prepare them for such careers. Unlike sites for high schoolers which try to help students choose a single major, the FunWorks tries to broaden kids’ interests.

We talked with and surveyed hundreds of students during the initial stages of collection development, and observed trends in their responses which the teachers among you probably recognize from your own classrooms:
1) Young people often name career aspirations based on a very small number of high-visibility careers: The responses of doctor, nurse, lawyer, basketball player, singer/rapper, teacher, day care worker, and cosmetologist emerged again and again as we asked kids what work they thought they might do in the future.
2) Their ideas about the connections between school and future work are vague. Students who say they want to become doctors, for example, might say that they need to study biology now and go to college later, but they often don’t know that math and chemistry are important, too, or how grades in all subjects factor into competitive admissions processes. Young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are less likely than their more affluent peers to know career pathway details. (A sneaky FunWorks secret: every career profile recommends taking more math of some kind as preparation!)

A design team of African American and Latino young people from a local (Boston-area) community technology center made the design and navigation decisions reflected in the FunWorks site as it is today. Based on the survey data and on their own hobbies and interests, the team decided to group STEM careers into 5 main categories: Music, Technology, Medicine/Law, Art & Design, Sports, and the catch-all, Exploration. (They also insisted that kids have a way to go directly to the games!) Many careers are cross-listed, so by clicking on a single category, a young person gets a list of careers which they might not have considered individually.

With the help of students and teachers, the FunWorks collection is still evolving. The site publishes youth-created content, so if your students interview a STEM professional or research a particular career, please consider having them submit their write-ups to the FunWorks. If students are disappointed at not finding specific careers profiled, then they have the option of adding those careers themselves! (Submissions can be sent to spillai@edc.org)

Again, thanks for checking out the blog, and please come and visit the FunWorks after tonight’s Web Seminar!
Cheers,
Bethany

We’ve asked our presenters for the NSDL/NSTA Web Seminar 2007 Fall Series to share their insights on pursuing careers in science and science education. They’ll also share some of their current work in their fields of expertise. Read, share, and comment on the discussion for the Fall Series running from September 2007 to January 2008.