New STEM Place-Based Resources for Teachers
Come learn about two new educational opportunities for teachers.
- Place-based culturally relevant environmental science lessons created by Montana teachers. You can get a stipend to join a group of teachers for professional development and support this upcoming academic year while learning how to engage your students with hands-on lesson plans that feature mysteries and case studies from Montana.
- Learn about a NASA robotics showcase in which your students can participate in missions and showcase their work at an event at MSU and possibly win a trip to Kennedy Space Center.
Jamie Cornish
Dr. Jamie Cornish, is the science outreach and education specialist at Montana State University, Academic Technology & Outreach, where she has helped write, manage and implement several multi-million dollar grants from NASA, NSF, and NIH. She focused on her passion for science communication, while working at Museum of the Rockies, Sesame Street, and the Walt Disney Company in past years.
Nora Smith
Nora Smith has worked in a variety of roles at Montana State University for the past 30 years. You can catch her on KGLT most Thursday afternoons.
Linda Rost
Linda Rost is the 2020 Montana Teacher of the Year and a national finalist. She teaches science at Baker High School in Baker, MT. In her seventeen-year career, twenty-six of her students have competed at national or international science competitions. Rost obtained a B.S. from New Mexico State University, an M.Ed. and M.S. from Montana State University, and a PhD from Texas Tech University. She is a three-time winner of the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium Teacher Award, a four-time Continental Cares grant recipient, and the 2016 National Vernier Engineering Contest winner. In 2023, she received the NEA Foundation Excellence in Teaching Award for Montana, the Teresa Veltkamp Advocacy Award for Excellence in Indian Education, and is finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching. She lives on a cattle and poultry ranch in Baker, MT with her husband and three children.
Chris Pavlovich
Director of Program Services and Evaluation, Ripple: The Center for Education and Ecosystem Studies. Affiliate Faculty, Master of Science in Science Education Department, Montana State University.
Chris Pavlovich holds a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction and a Master of Science in Science Education awarded by Montana State University. She served as a 5th grade teacher for 14 years in Livingston, Montana. Chris founded Watershed Warriors, a place-based, interdisciplinary watershed education program based on a mission of stewardship, application, and access. Her goal in science education is to engage teachers and students in place-based, project-based pedagogies to decrease the border between science and classrooms. She holds steadfast that science education is for all. She was named 2022 Montana Environmental Education Association Formal Educator of the Year; awarded the 2022 Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators; awarded the Teresa Veltkamp Advocacy Award for Excellence in Indian Education in 2021; awarded Presidential Awards for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching in 2020; recognized by the Montana Science Teachers Association in 2018 for Distinguished Service to Science Education; named Montana Watershed Teacher of the Year by the Clark Fork Watershed Education Program in 2017; and awarded Montana Educator of the Year by the American Fisheries Society in 2013.
Bill Stockton
Bill Stockton is a high school science teacher at Arlee High School and for the Montana Digital Academy. Stockton obtained a bachelor of arts in biology from the University of Montana and a master of science in science education from Montana State University. In 2018, Stockton created Stock Science Educational Consulting in order to provide leadership, training, and implementation of best practices in integrating the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and Indian Education for All (IEFA) into classroom and educational materials. Stockton is a 2020 Teresa Veltkamp Advocacy Award for Excellence in Indian Education recipient and the 2022 Montana Teacher of the Year.