Pamela Leestma, a second grade teacher at Valley Christian Elementary School in Bellflower, was among those honored in Washington last week for her innovative teaching methods and success in boosting academic performance.
Leestma, who has taught for 33 years, was named one of five American Stars of Teaching honored by a committee of former teachers at the U.S. Department of Education who considered 5,000 nominations.
She was the only elementary teacher to receive the honor. Leestma stood out for her success in incorporating science into the second grade curriculum. In May, Leestma’s Valley Christian class partnered with an after-school program at One Stop Richmond Hill Community Center in New York City for NASA’s first coast-to-coast live video conference with astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
Leestma also organizes an annual star gazing night for students and their families and conducts professional development and training nationally and for the Assn. of Christian Schools International conferences in Southern California.
At Valley Christian Elementary, she is known for her passionate love of science and igniting in her students the same feeling, principal Ann Samuelson said.
"She brings innovative technology and integrates that into the classroom, which is especially unusual for second grade," Samuelson said.
Leestma came by her fascination of space gazing at the rings of Saturn through a telescope in the second grade. Growing up in Tampa Bay, Fla., her family would race outside during NASA launches to see rockets lifting toward the stars. She met X-15 test pilot and astronaut Joseph Albert Walker only weeks before his June 1966 death in an air collision. Her cousin, David C. Leestma, is a shuttle astronaut and veteran of three space flights, the last being a 1992 Atlantis mission.
Leestma hopes recognition of her work will inspire other teachers, "because they’re ones that need to inspire next the generation."
Her next goal is to obtain video conferencing equipment for her classroom.
"It's a small world out there, and I want to reach across borders," she said.
It's Day 9 of the Olympics, and it looks like the United States is tied in the overall medal competition with ... let's see ... Botswana!
Oh, and Kuwait. And Togo. And Uzbekistan. And a few others.
Which is to say, we have a big fat zero. A goose egg. Nada. Zilch.
Finland, meanwhile, leads the rankings with 32 medals, followed by Hong Kong (26), Japan (13) and New Zealand (11).
Read more Where's Michael Phelps when we need him? »
Antero Garcia, an English teacher at Manual Arts High, writes:
Sure, I may be on a year-round schedule and just about to begin administering finals for the first quarter of the year. However, that isn’t stopping me from biting into a hearty chunk of summer reading. Along with the usual mishmash of fiction and reacquainting myself with several education texts, I stumbled across a rather delightful rulebook: Brain Rules by John Medina.
Medina, a molecular biologist, lists key rules to how our brains function, learn, and interpret the world around them. He does this in the kinds of plain English laymen like me can breeze through. With each chapter dedicated to one of the 12 brain rules, the book is a fascinating tour of cognition and human development.
What I find most exciting about Brain Rules is the provoking portion of “Ideas” that conclude each chapter. Medina hones in on how a brain rule relates directly to education and to business. Rules like “Repeat to Remember” (No. 5) and “Remember to Repeat" (No. 6) may appear obvious and elementary. However, once Medina points out how it may be useful to establish a household room for learning Spanish, or how the current class schedule is less than effective for long-term retention, the book really starts to take off. A multi-modal launching pad for new educational pathways (it includes key icons for each rule, a DVD of accompanying scenarios, and a comprehensive website), Brain Rules is a text I plan to discuss with friends, colleagues and students.
If nothing else, read Brain Rules to learn why PowerPoint (at least in the way most of us use it) is a terrible presentation tool. I know it’s changed how I’ll be adapting the tool in the classroom.
This book offers a lot of possibilities about how to approach education from a different perspective. I’d love to share more, though now I believe it is time for me to follow rule No. 7: “Sleep well, think well.” Good night!
Antero Garcia, an English teacher at Manual Arts High, writes:
This past weekend, environmentalist Maury Green posted an in-depth report of his investigations into the nature of the mysterious Black Cloud. For some time, my seniors have been conducting investigations into this anomaly. We have been aided by numerous guests; last week we had visitors from the Guerrilla Gardeners. And my students will be presenting their work and recruiting volunteers at Machine Project, an art gallery in Echo Park at 8 p.m. on Aug. 23.
Take a look at the video for more on the Black Cloud.
Read more Maybe you can help us solve the mystery »
(Aug. 4, 2008. Correction: The drug Ranti used was not Phenoxodiol; it was another experimental drug.)
Ranti Odujinrin of Altadena will begin her senior year at Polytechnic School in the fall. She is one of 80 high school and college students selected from 600 applicants for the City of Hope’s Summer Student Academy. Ranti is working on a breast cancer treatment experiment and wrote the following about her internship:
(Above, interns visit the California Science Center)
While most of my friends took part in language immersion programs in Argentina or summer school at Columbia University, I spent the summer working as an intern at the City of Hope. I have been lucky enough to work in the molecular medicine lab under the guidance of my principal investigator, Dr. Edward Newman, and my mentor, Doris Villacorte.
In my most recent experiment, I was given a flask of breast cancer cells to grow and maintain at a count of 100,000 cells in each well before adding a drug. The objective was to add different concentrations of PxD (Phenoxodiol), a drug used to kill cancer cells, to test which was the most effective. Over the course of a week I drugged, harvested, and counted breast cancer cells, noting whether the cells grew or died. I graphed the cell growth of each concentration and presented the information to Dr. Newman. As expected in science, the results do not always come out as we hope or expect, and my experiment was no exception. So today, I will start over, re-drugging, re-harvesting and re-counting, although this time I’ll have another week of experience under my belt.
Read more High school student researches cancer »
Just the place to be on Tuesday when a 5.4 magnitude earthquake shook Southern California: Attending a lecture by UC Riverside professor David Oglesby. The subject? Earthquakes.
Oglesby, an associate professor in UCR's department of Earth sciences and an expert on earthquake physics, was explaining earthquake waves when he and 17 students had to take cover under their desks. The lecture resumed following the 25-second quake.
"We were learning about the "P" and "S" waves and the difference between them and their sensations," said Thalia Torres, a second-year student from Pasadena City College. "Then we heard a shaking sound and we all looked at each other and the whole building shook and we ducked down and we asked, 'Is that an earthquake?' My heart was beating so fast, it was really exciting. We were talking about it and the next thing we experienced it. What a great way to learn."
The students were part of the Community College Internship program, sponsored by UCR's Graduate School of Education's Copernicus Project.
The UCR campus did not sustain any damage.
-- Mary MacVean
Photo by Don Kelsen / Los Angeles Times
The results of this study from USC Rossier School of Education fit what you might expect about student-faculty relationships: Latino college students who major in math, sciences and technology do better academically when they have strong relationships with faculty.
The study, "Examining the Academic Success of Latino Students in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Majors," appears in the July-August issue of the Journal of College Student Development. Its authors are associate education professor Darnell Cole and graduate student Araceli Espinoza.
"This shows how important it is for students to perceive they are part of the academic environment, especially for Latino students whose backgrounds may not be represented as equally in faculty numbers," Cole in a statement from USC.
Read more Latino students benefit from strong faculty ties »
The other day we got the news that girls are doing as well as boys on math tests.
And earlier this week, the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee heard from experts on the need for improved math and science education.
Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat who chairs the committee, said, "America won’t be able to maintain our great legacy of innovation and discovery, let alone compete in today’s global economy, unless we make investing in math and science education a top priority."
"When both girls and boys are encouraged to pursue their interests, they are inspired to think about their futures and are better prepared to pursue a wide range of exciting opportunities in high school, college and beyond," said Sally Ride, a former astronaut who was the first American woman in space and head of STEM, an organization that focuses on helping students pursue opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math.
Read more Calls for improvements to math, science education »
Wendy Gorton, a teacher at Hancock Park Elementary School, writes from Australia, where she is on a National Geographic trip for teachers and children:
(Wendy Gorton holds a koala at Kuranda Koala Gardens)
Alex Bentley, one of the National Geographic Hands-On Explorer Challenge winners, pulled a branch in front of him at Hartley's Crocodile Reserve in Cairns, and a shower of green ants poured out. The student explorers and teachers all plucked one up and squeezed the abdomen in their mouths, enjoying the lemony burst of flavor -- and occasional appendage.
Yup, we're still in Australia, and the adventures continue.
Catherine Hughes, one of our National Geographic Expedition leaders, prepared the students for writing nature and expedition journals. Students were encouraged to take messy field notes and to sketch color, size and details of things in the moment and identify their species later. The explorers furiously wrote about the odd relationship between the bumpy satin ash and the strangular fig that grows downward on it.
Seeing these kids so dutifully sketching in their books and thoughtfully documenting these moments inspired me to keep nature journals going in my classroom next year, whether to jot down a thought about a type of plant or to sketch a bird in flight or to gather a scrap that symbolizes that day.
Read more L.A. teacher studies Australian wildlife »
Wendy Gorton, a teacher at Hancock Park Elementary School, writes from Australia, where she is on a National Geographic trip for teachers and children:
"Pay attention to the moments," Annie Griffiths Belt, a 30-year National Geographic photographer, told a roomful of 15 eager kids, their Nikon digital SLRs gripped in their hands like precious stones. The moments were plenty as we ended our first official day of the National Geographic Kids Hands-On Explorer Challenge Expedition to Australia.
Joshua Stitzinger, the other teacher winner from Philadelphia who crafted an Australian geography lesson to earn his ticket, looked on with me at the budding photographers learning from a seasoned pro. You know the moment as a teacher when you feel a student get sparked and hooked onto something? It's like a train getting on its correct tracks, snapping into place on its path -- I could feel these children's life purpose getting calibrated right in front of me and their parents, who are accompanying them on this amazing journey.
It's a feeling that should be commonplace in the classroom as we expose students to the many moments of their lives and the opportunities that abound for them.
In the conference room in Port Douglas, about 50 miles from Cairns on the East Coast and across the International Date Line for all of us, Annie urged the children to not only pay attention to moments, but to also to let light guide their compositions.
Our morning began with light hiding behind tropical storm clouds, but it broke through as we had "Breakfast with the Birds" at the Rainforest Habitat park, a jungle in the Queensland "Wet Tropics" area. As we tried Vegemite and exotic fruits such as the tamarillo, lorakeets playfully swooped down to try to get a nibble. We walked near the endangered southern cassowary, light trickling onto its bony head and the student photographers snapping photos of these rare birds. Students tried blending in and kneeling, which Annie says is less threatening whether your subjects are animals or people, and they snagged some fantastic shots of crocs and pythons and a host of birds. The student explorers are going to be capturing moments with diverse wildlife -- Australia is home to about 7% of the Earth's species -- for two weeks.
Read more L.A. teacher on Australian expedition »
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Jimmy Biblarz
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