Science teacher, Leestown Middle School

During my eighth-grade year of junior high school, I had a wonderful teacher who opened my mind to science with active learning strategies and engaged our class with hands-on activities. Now, my approach to teaching science is very hands-on. The most important thing is to inspire kids to have fun exploring the world. If students think projects  are cool and fun, then they become excited and engaged. It takes much more time to do hands-on experiments than reading the textbook and answering questions, but the hands-on activities are what students will remember for decades.

Thanks to a grant from Lexmark, we at Leestown have great new tools including vernier probes, labquests and laptops. This has been such a gift to our students  because it gives them a chance to enjoy science through technology. One of highlights of my teaching career is when former students come up and tell me how they remember all the labs we did in class and how much they learned.

“A teacher is a compass that activates the magnets of curiosity, knowledge and wisdom in the pupils.” -- Ever Garrison