Students test their engineering might at annual Boeing design challenge

“This is stressful,” Emilia Talarski says in between bites of pizza. She’s worried her balsa wood glider will break. Although, it already has a crack. It happened when she fell while holding it. But she describes it as a happy accident. “It actually made the glider fly better,” says the third grader from MOSAIC Elementary […]

Mobile science lab sparks curiosity in Hawthorn students

I see red! I see green! I see purple! Sporting virtual reality headsets, a group of seventh-graders from Hawthorn Leadership School for Girls, are sharing the different colors they see as they take a virtual tour of brain cells. “I haven’t experienced anything like this before,” Cailyn McGraw says. “Seeing the cells and the cells […]

Sally Elgin: Lessons learned in a life of science

Nowadays Sally Elgin would probably be referred to as gifted or talented. But in the 1950s, a really smart girl was obnoxious or a nerd. “I come from a long line of nerds and it’s not always a good social position to be in,” explains Elgin, the Viktor Hamburger Professor of Arts & Sciences at […]

Creating a new generation of educators

Good teachers make for engaged students and stable schools. That’s why Washington University in St. Louis is partnering with St. Louis Teacher Residency to train and support a new generation of educators. “As an institution of higher education and one of the region’s largest employers, Washington University knows that strong K-12 schools are vital to […]

ISP backed science fair workshop a powerful learning experience

(February 21, 2018 by Molly Davis) On a Saturday afternoon, local elementary school students and their families filed into a classroom for the “Getting Started with Science Fair” workshop, ready to spend the next few hours preparing to apply the scientific method to a question that interested the students. The group listened intently to the opening […]

Hawthorn InvestiGirls program takes homework help to next level

(February 19, 2018 by Diane Toroian Keaggy) Seventh-grader Michelle Kenton is not like a lot of her classmates. At Hawthorn Leadership School for Girls, a school where many students are good readers, Kenton admits that she gets nervous reading aloud. But she loves math, often besting her peers on tests and assignments. Hawthorn InvestiGirls, an after-school […]

Celebrating science at the ISP’s annual Darwin Day

A life-size cutout of Charles Darwin stands in the corner. Next to him are party hats and a selfie stick. His face adorns a birthday cake that’s wheeled out to much excitement. Numbers are read and fossils are raffled off. Attendees sport buttons that read “I love evolution” and “Team Darwin.” This isn’t your ordinary […]

ISP faculty fellow honored

Institute for School Partnership Faculty Fellow David Kirk is being honored as an outstanding science educator by the Academy of Science – St. Louis. Kirk, PhD, professor emeritus in the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences, has been chosen to receive the 2018 Science Educator Award. It recognizes a distinguished individual on the basis of outstanding contributions […]

ISP leads Hour of Code

“I made it move,” an ecstatic Jalen Royston said as he bolted up from his seat, pumping his fists in the air. He’d inputted the correct code to make clouds on his computer screen move to the left. Sporting a “Hello, I’m Awesome” T-shirt, Jalen, a fifth-grader at Barbara C. Jordan Elementary School in The […]

Q&A with Missouri biology teacher of the year

Ryan Lacson, a 2013 graduate of the Master of Science in Biology for Science Teachers program at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named the 2017 Missouri Outstanding Biology Teacher of the Year by the National Association of Biology Teachers. Lacson is a science teacher at Galena High School in Galena, Missouri. He also sponsors Galena High School’s Beta […]