FirstStepScience

Hello! I am a fourth year science teacher with teaching experience in topics including genetics, populations & communities, cells, evolution, environmental science, , chemistry, physics, technology, etc. I have teaching experience in middle school science, undergraduate-level biology and population dynamics, and secondary level marching band.

​I am trained in a style of science education called Ambitious Science Teaching. In this model, students are first presented with phenomena, and are asked to produce initial ideas and explanations for the phenomena. Then, they are presented with hands-on experiences that give them new information to incorporate into their understanding of the phenomena. Finally, students are tasked with improving their explanation using evidence from the lab activities; the teacher uses this final explanation as a summative assessment. In an AST classroom, teachers prioritize investigation and explanation over memorization. In my classroom, students are not just taught scientific concepts, but the skills required to discover those concepts!

I graduated from the Pennsylvania State University in 2022, earning a B.S. in Secondary Education for Biology, and two minors in Biology and Psychology.

I grew up near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, lived and taught in the seacoast region of New Hampshire for a year, and now reside in southern Virginia!