NOAA Einstein Fellow Brings Science Savvy From the Classroom

to the Conference Room

Former Teacher Working to Better National-Level Education Policy and Outreach

Genevieve Contey
NOAA Communications & External Affairs

October 23, 2009 — This month, NOAA World sat down with to talk with Kirk Beckendorf, NOAA’s Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow working in the Office of Education — one of only 15 science and math teachers selected last year from a nationwide pool. The program places outstanding elementary and secondary school science teachers in Congressional offices and federal agencies to bring real-world perspectives to education policy and programs.

Before becoming a science teacher, you held a number of interesting jobs: you’ve driven stagecoaches in Yellowstone National Park, guided whitewater rafting trips in Alaska, and worked on ranches and dairy farms. What brought you to teaching?

After I got my undergraduate degree in agronomy [the science of crop production and farmland management], I worked for 10 years at Yellowstone and Denali, where I was informally instructing visitors and students about the natural world and the environment. It struck me that I really liked teaching, so I headed to Texas A&M to get my certification in secondary school science.

At first, I thought I wanted to teach high school, but when I visited classrooms to observe, I noticed that middle school students had so much more energy! I found that I really preferred that [middle school] over the more subdued high school environment. Since then, I’ve taught middle school life, earth, and physical science in Oregon, and most recently, in Blanco, Texas.

As a science teacher with 17 years in the classroom, you’ve participated in a number of research expeditions. Tell us about a few.

As a NOAA Teacher at Sea for the 2004 field season, I participated in the largest air quality study ever done. It was off the Coast of Maine.  I got to work with scientists onboard the NOAA Ship Ron Brown studying air quality and how pollutants change as time passes, and how they pass through the atmosphere. It was really fascinating.

In January 2008, I went to Antarctica for a project called PolarTREC, a research experience where teachers are paired with scientists studying the Arctic and the Antarctic. I worked with a meteorology team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison that manages a set of automatic weather stations for weather forecasting and research. We’d fly out to stations and maintain them — basically dig them out of the snow and repair those not transmitting data. We were based at McMurdo Station, but we flew all over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet! I was in Internet contact with my students and others via an audio-, text- and photo-based blog. We even had live educational webinars from Antarctica that drew 500 student participants from the around the world.

Participating in “extracurricular” research expeditions enables me to bring real science into the classroom. It also gives me more credibility as a teacher having worked with real scientists on important research missions.

Getting middle school students excited about science sounds challenging. Tell us about some of the creative ways you’ve brought science into the classroom.

You’re right. The key is to get them up and doing real-life experiments that demonstrate scientific concepts they would normally read about in a text book.

For example, to teach about force and motion, I had students learn about the handicapped accessibility regulations for doors. I had them go out and measure the force required to open our school doors to see if the building met the regulations. Often, I had them attempt this by sitting in wheelchairs.

After my Teacher at Sea experience studying air quality, I had students use NOAA’s Web-based computer models to take a closer look at the air that they were breathing — where it was coming from and where it was going. Using the models, they could actually figure out where the air they were breathing that day had been a few days ago.

I’ve also taken students on field trips to public lands in Oregon to participate in geocaching, which is a scavenger hunt that uses GPS to find hidden containers (caches) of trinkets. It’s a great way to teach kids about how to read maps and use GPS to survive in the great outdoors — and they learn a lot about the area’s natural history along the way.

What led you to becoming an Einstein Fellow? Why did you want to apply?

Over the years, I’ve become more interested in how education programs and policies are developed by the government’s science agencies. After having been a Teacher at Sea, I was very interested in coming inside NOAA to work on the education side. I wanted to bring my experiences “in the trenches” to help direct education policies and practices.

What have you been working on in NOAA’s Office of Education?

When I first got here last year, I started working with the Office of Education’s grants team to help develop funding opportunities. I also reviewed public comments to and edited NOAA’s 2009 strategic education plan. Right now, I’m working on the redesign of the NOAA Education Web site to make it more robust and teacher-friendly.  I also do quite a number of presentations to teachers about NOAA’s large inventory of education resources.

What do you hope to bring back with you to the classroom after your fellowship is over?

Usually, about half the Einstein Fellows go back to the classroom. The rest might work for federal or state agencies or school districts, however, in more administrative roles. I haven’t yet decided what I’ll be doing when I’m finished. One of the great opportunities of this fellowship is to gain lots of professional development and learn the “latest and greatest” in educational techniques and resources for science education, and education in general.

Do you miss being in the classroom and working with kids every day?

I do. I miss the kids bouncing off the walls … and directing which way they should bounce. I miss their excitement when they learn new things. But, being here at NOAA has been great. The people I work with are incredible. They are very committed to what they do. It was the reason I decided to extend my fellowship for a second year.

 

To learn more about the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Program, visit the Triangle Coalition for Science and Technology Education’s Web site at: www.trianglecoalition.org/ein.htm.