I am happy to be returning for my fifth year teaching physics at Sayre.  After earning a B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, I moved to Lexington where my husband and I both accepted engineering jobs at Lexmark.  I worked in fuser and toner technology for one year before pursuing my true calling working with students and getting them excited about science!

My goal as a science teacher is to help my students to see science as accessible and relevant to their lives.  Science is not a static set of facts that can be memorized; it is an ongoing process of expanding and revising our understanding of the natural world.  Scientific ideas have grown and changed significantly during the past 500 years and are still changing today.  New observations routinely show us that our former understanding was incomplete.  In studying and practicing science, we seek to understand and express increasingly accurate models of a universe that may never be fully understood. 

In my physics classes, students take center stage.  They experience the process of scientific inquiry firsthand, and nearly all of the physics concepts they learn are gleaned directly from lab experiments.  These labs are deliberately designed to demonstrate certain physical laws and follow-up activities give students opportunities to apply these laws and correct common misconceptions.  After completing these activities, students present their answers and justifications to each other in a collaborative setting.  For consecutive two summers, I attended workshops in Modeling Instruction, where I  learned to more effectively implement this research based, hands-on/minds-on, constructivist approach.

In my spare time, I enjoy knitting, walking with my greyhound (Larry), cooking, and cake decorating. When school is not in session, my husband and I try to travel as much as possible.