Long Beach School District’s Carly Parker recently won a Leo W. Seal Innovative Teacher Grant for her project “The Problem Solver’s Friend”.
With the desire to create a more student-centered classroom that operates with collaboration, project-based learning, and technology integration, Parker will be introducing “The Problem Solver’s Friend” to her students.
“Through this project, students will immerse themselves in everything STEM. From the definition to interviewing STEM community members to learning how they use STEM in their careers, specifically the 3-D printer. They will create a STEM video library for teachers and students throughout our school to use in their education with STEM,” Parker said. “The videos will include the ‘Whats’, ‘How tos’, and ‘Whys’ of STEM.”
In addition to the videos, students will be tasked with becoming engineers themselves by brainstorming and finding problems within their classrooms, school, and community they can solve with the help of a 3-D printer.
“An example of this would be finding one leg of a table is not quite long enough and the wadded-up piece of paper is not doing the trick to balance it.”
The third and final piece of her project will be having students become educators themselves as they go into classrooms to lead a period of learning about STEM and 3-D printing.
Parker, a Long Beach graduate herself, is a Gifted Teacher at Harper McCaughan Elementary School. She has been in education for 18 years spending 14 of those in Long Beach.
“When I became a teacher, I couldn't wait to come back ‘home’. I am always looking for ways to give back to my school and provide the best possible experience for my students. I am and will always be ‘Proud to be a Bearcat’,” Parker said.
The Leo W. Seal Innovative Teacher grants are funded by Hancock Whitney through an endowment at the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
