Focus

Growing up in a rural area and teaching in a rural school has informed much of the work that I do today in rural science education. My research focuses on valuing rural children’s local science and engineering knowledge, place-based teacher professional development as a means of valuing and utilizing local rural knowledge in classroom practice, and the barriers rural children in poverty face in the era of standardization. My life-long body of work is dedicated to enhancing rural children’s access to STEM. This is evidenced by a history of developing and providing direct experiences in STEM for rural children; by engaging both pre-and inservice teachers in place-based critical pedagogies via teaching, learning and professional development programming; and creating and implementing clinically-rich college/school district partnerships that enhance educators’ skills of using and valuing local resources, community assets (sociocultural), and local knowledge to teach STEM from cradle to grave
(pre-K->inservice teacher education).