Elementary Education Major Pamela Thompson Receives Presidential Award for Teaching
Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching honoree Pamela Thompson, a looping grades 3 and 4 teacher at Madison Elementary School, was feted for innovative inquiry-based science lessons on weathering and erosion.
In teaching one of those lessons, Thompson began by telling her students about childhood trips to see New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain. ("They were immediately intrigued," she says, "because I was talking about when I was a little kid.") With before-and-after pictures, she explained that the landmark geologic feature of a man's face in profile had since disappeared.
To discover what happened, her students replicated the forces of nature behind the change. She set out baby-food jars that students filled with water and later froze. When the chilled jars broke, her students saw that ice is far stronger than it's cracked up to be.
"They figured out that water was getting into the Old Man of the Mountain," she says. "And through freezing and refreezing, it was expanding cracks in the rocks over and over again."
Thompson, who earned degrees in elementary education and rehabilitation services at UMF, says the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching is a "great confirmation" of her belief that "all subjects can be integrated" in teaching science.
"Knowledge of science and backgrounds in science is what will help solve some of the world's problems," she told the Morning Sentinel. "If you want to engage kids in learning, give them science."
And shortly after receiving the honor, she gave her students something: an opportunity to share in the celebration.
"I told them, 'If I win this award, I'm taking you bowling,'" says Thompson, who rented four lanes for a fun, applied lesson in kinetic energy. "They had a great time. I give them the credit."
-- By Marc Glass, managing editor of the UMF alumni magazine
