GK12teachers
From UAFCS
This page lists the school districts, schools, and teachers that might potentially participate in our new NSF GK12 project.
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Fairbanks North Star Borough School District
Superintendent is Dr. Nancy Wagner.
West Valley High School
West Valley is located less than a mile from UAF. Their classes run until 2:15pm, with four 80-minute classes/day on a rotating schedule.
Hannibal Grubis (479-4221 x9224) hgrubis@northstar.k12.ak.us
Hannibal is an AP Calc AB&BC at West Valley High School. He has done Radical Math at ASRA instructor and was loved by the students. Great teacher. We met with him 2010-03-24, and discussed:
- Bringing grad students into his Geom/Trig classes. There's a lot of schedule flexibility in this class, unlike the more-packed Calculus, but still lots of applications for graduate research.
- Having grad students help teach with the Geometer's Sketchpad, or Mathematica.
- Having grad students help with extra-curricular activities, such as the Math Olympiad, American Math Contest, or Alaska High School Science Syposium.
- Typical classroom has iMacs, graphing calculators, a projector and smartboard.
Cyndie Beale cbeale@northstar.k12.ak.us 479-4221 Outstanding West Valley biology teacher. Cyndie is noted for her student's outstanding Science Symposium projects. She's probably mostly covered with Rich Boone's GK12 grant.
Lathrop High School
Lathrop is Fairbanks' biggest high school, and they do a huge amount of robotics work. They have a 3D printer, a uPrint that prints in off-white "ABSplus" material, objects up to 8"x6"x6" (although build time becomes an issue with huge objects). http://lth.k12northstar.org/
Larry Ehnert lehnert@northstar.k12.ak.us Larry is leading the Lathrop Engineering Academy "Project Lead the Way (PLTW)". UAF is heavily involved with this. Larry has done both FTC, FRC for a decade and has taken teams to the nationals year after year. Larry is a former IBM engineer, leading the Lathrop Engineering Academy. Students learn LabView, pbasic, and rapid-fab plastic parts.
- He's really like a graduate student to help out with his open-ended labs.
- Example project: MATE ROV contest.
It's not exactly clear which course to bring the GK12 course into. "Principles of Engineering" is a possible course, but it'd be nice to have actual coursework. Larry is leaning towards more of a teaching assistant role for the grads, but we'd like to make it more "module"-like.
Wendy Ehnert wehnert@northstar.k12.ak.us
Both are outstanding teachers. Wendy is science (AP Chem AB&BC) and is noted for her student's outstanding Science Symposium projects. Wendy is a BP Teacher of Excellence.
- She'd really like a graduate student to help with her students' AP Bio independent study projects.
- Example project: monitor sled dogs' heartrate, glucose (how?), mileage, thrust, velocity.
Dan Hackett dhackett@northstar.k12.ak.us
456-7794 x1720 would also be excellent. He won a BP teacher award, and teaches calculus.
Dan Plovey teaches Principals of Technology, which is part of PLTW (Project Lead the Way, engineering info).
Effie Kokrine School
Effie Kokrine is a grade 7-12 charter school, very close to UAF off Loftus road. http://ekc.k12northstar.org/ Effie is part of the Alaska Native Knowledge Network. http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/NPE/EKCS/
Kathleen Meckel kmeckel@northstar.k12.ak.us 474-0958 Kathleen was involved in TASK. She is a motivated and enthusiastic teacher. We need to contact her in person.
Eric Galloway egalloway@northstar.k12.ak.us
Eric is the Math/Science teacher at Effie. He worked for ASRA as dorm staff, and is running the ASRA/Effie Kokrine Saturday outreach program.
I think he's more Math, so whatever demos that would work with Hannibal would also work in Eric's classes.
Tanana Middle School
Located off Trainor Gate road near the military base. The school is very diverse. http://tan.k12northstar.org/
Renee Parsley rparsley@northstar.k12.ak.us Renee worked at UAF-ASRA as an instructor in both robotics and neurobiology for several years. She is a great science teacher, having experience at both the high school and middle school level. She has done robotics, forensics and science symposium in the public schools.
- She'd really like a student to help build and use instructional equipment in the classroom, like a pedal-powered generator with a power readout.
Jeff: Renee worked at ASRA as an instructor. She is great. Teaches physical science, research area is neurobiology. Worked at LARS, studying stomach secretions. Taught robotics in ASRA for multiple years. Worked with Elana Sparrow for the "globe project".
Morgan Gray mgray@northstar.k12.ak.us
Morgan runs over 20 Lego Robotics teams out of Tanana Middle School. They stopped competing in Anchorage because they kept sweeping the tournament! Morgan runs the GT program and has a projects based curriculum (now Extended Learning Program). Does robots, music, and space exploration.
Morgan was a Milken Foundation teacher in 2005: http://www.mff.org/mea/mea.taf?page=recipient&meaID=17827
North Pole HS
Located off the old Richardson highway in North Pole. http://nph.k12northstar.org/
Rebecca Missler, earth science teacher @ NPHS rebecca.missler@northstar.k12.ak.us 479-4221 Ext. 9192 rebecca.missler@k12northstar.org
Rebecca taught the GEOS101 education lab with Jeff. She is finishing a masters in geology, and is a natural teacher. This is her first year teaching. I highly recommend her. Because she is a first year teacher, she could become a candidate in 3 years.
Anchorage School District
We do have a number of graduate students that live in the Anchorage area, so the logistics of supporting programs in other schools might be possible. http://www.asdk12.org/
Round-trip plane flight to Anchorage is $250; you can drive for less than $100 in gas.
Diamond High School
http://www.asdk12.org/schooldetails.asp?ID=820
Wade Roach roach_wade@asdk12.org, (o 742-7177). Wade does robotics big time in his school.
We talked at a lunch phone meeting 11:30 AM-12:15 PM 2010-03-24. Wade is the lead instructor for "Project Lead The Way", to try to encourage more American engineering students. http://www.asdk12.org/home.asp?num=100098
East High
http://www.asdk12.org/schooldetails.asp?ID=830
Heather Roach. Heather teaches chemistry and robotics at East High.
Mat-Su Borough School District
Serving schools outside of Anchorage. http://www.matsuk12.us/
Twindly Bridge Charter School
Wasilla school, K-12: deals with homeschool kids mostly. Quarters are 7 weeks, with a weeklong break, then an 7-week run, Christmas break, and 10 weeks, then they switch over to a more ad-hoc schedule to work around testing. Their school is arranged as a set of quarterly voluntary "sessions" (e.g., sign language, robotics, spanish), and students sign up as needed. Typical session is *one* hour, five days/week. They're a mix of Mac and PC, Michael does PC mostly, since most robotics stuff is on PC. http://twindlybridge.us/
Michael Backus (h 376-3534 / c 715-4498). Michael has taught robotics at ASRA for many years. He has single handedly built the robotics program at his school. The Twindly robotics program encompasses 1st thru 12th grade. Michael does sensors and vision with the students besides the usual mazes, sumo and statewide competitions. Michael can program in multiple languages and loves when students build things.
He teaches nothing *but* robotics, from Lego robots through FTC. Almost everything he does is autonomous. Does ASRA advanced robotics module. Robotics counts as a science elective. Matt lives in Anchorage, so that's an option.
Robert 2010-03-10: I spoke to Matt Antcil and Michael Backus about doing GK-12 down at Wasilla. Both were very interested. Michael has taught at Twindly Charter school for the last 5 years. they have powermachines for 1-3 grades ("we do robotics"), FLL from 3-8 and also FTC for the older students.
Thinking about doing the MIT SeaPearch, or Super SeaPearch: we'd need a good graduate student to be interested in this.
One good approach to doing this would be to have a graduate student work as an FLL coach (probably 5-6 students) or FTC coach (2-3 students/team). We could start off with co-teaching, and transition over to having the graduate student be responsible for the team completely.
2010-05-07: Seta talked to Michael again, and he's willing to develop a new course for GK12 work.
Mt. Edgecumbe
Located in Sitka: round-trip flight is about $600.
Bill Hutton is superintendant.
Nome
http://www.nomeschools.com/~acsa/
They've got quite nice technical infrastructure.
Anvil City Science Academy
Anupma Prakash highly recommends working with Nome, since they're very technically savvy.
Robin Johnson rjohnson@nomeschools.com is a good person there--e.g., knows FTP. They're listed as Technology Director.
North Slope Borough School District
Barrow
Approximately 85% Alaska Native.
Tim Buckley is recommended by Anupma Prakash.
Juneau
Douglas High School
Anupma will contact the principal there, when she visits on May 7.
Anupma Prakash did the OEGD project. In particular, developing engineering talent is incredibly important. To integrate natural sciences, you can connect earth science (climate change, weather) with space science (satellite uplinks, remote sensing).
