Teacher Award

State Teacher Award 2024

Karen Webb

My career as an educator started with raising four children. I was decidedly determined to be an active participant in their formal education, so I took the opportunity to work closely with the science specialist at their elementary school; this was my first experience with science in the classroom. At Utah Valley University I focused on science and STEM in the classroom and graduated with a B.S. degree in Elementary Education. I taught a STEM-focused curriculum in my classroom which caught the attention of my current principal, and he offered me a full-time elementary STEM Specialist position. Teaching a STEM curriculum to every student in our school has allowed me to use the Utah Science with Engineering Education (SEEd) standards across the six grade levels that I teach, making it possible to scaffold from one grade level to another.

I teach every student at my school in kindergarten through fifth grade. This includes students that are in an enclosed classroom because of developmental and/or physical disabilities. The Utah SEEd standards are like telling a story from kindergarten through fifth grade. Every grade has a unit that has a strong tie to learning about the natural world. Many crosscutting concepts are incorporated with the intent to integrate literacy and mathematical reasoning strategies as well as the focused intent of teaching science and engineering practices. I teach the science of growing plants through each grade level, but I also get the opportunity to teach about sustainability in farming. I was introduced to these crosscutting concepts when I attended a professional development workshop in my school district that showed us how to use engineering in the new SEEd standards. I specifically became very interested in agricultural engineering.

My instruction in the fall lays the groundwork for concept building that students will use all year. Most of my students are familiar with how plants grow in spring; however, I like to start with the decomposition process by using carved pumpkins. After the pumpkins have decomposed, we discuss how decomposers benefit soil and the regrowth of plants. Using a lesson from the National Agriculture Literacy Matrix, students have the opportunity to grow pumpkins inside of a pumpkin with soil. Students also sprout pumpkin seeds in a plastic bag with no soil, which allows students to take seeds home for further observation. Just today (January 16, 2024), a fifth-grade student came running up to me to show me how her pumpkin seeds—that I gave her in October—had sprouted. She said they had finally gotten so heavy that they fell out of her window and landed in her dirty laundry basket where they went through the wash but because they were protected by the plastic bag, they had survived and were still growing. We then had a discussion where she told me that she thought that plants were “amazing!” She was excited to tell me that she was doing her science fair project on how plants can grow in different types of soil. Even though this is a fifth-grade standard, she has not been taught this, yet. She made that connection from the front load lesson I had taught her in the fall. I often have students tell me these kinds of stories about what they had learned in a previous year or unit and connect it to build their own understanding. I guess that would be guiding, not teaching, and that is what I do: guide students through the scientific process and help them ask questions and look for ways they can answer those questions.

The story of plant growth continues throughout the year with each grade level. For example, I teach kindergarteners what plants need to grow. First grade students learn how matter is used to grow plants. Second grade students discuss pollination and create hand pollinators, explore what types of material make the best pollinators, therefore understanding that different plants have different pollinators. Next, students use agricultural engineering to build upon plant growth, matter cycles, and pollination. Kindergarteners and first graders use robots called Bee-Bots to code and move pom-poms from one flower to another as a way to mimic the relationship between plants and animals in the pollination process. Second graders also learn about sustainable farming in Greenland and how plants and food can be grown in a controlled environment year-round. In third grade, students learn about farming practices in places like in Nepal where there are no roads or bridges to connect communities, dangerous rivers that flood often, and very rough mountainous terrain. Groups of students engineer a device called a TarPul to transport materials. A TarPul translates to “wire bridge” where people pull themselves across the river in a small cable car that is suspended from two poles that span across the dangerous rivers. I connect this activity with some of the struggles we face, especially in southern Utah where flooding is an issue. In fourth grade, students use what they learned about decomposers to discuss how plants and animals need decomposition to show the cycling of materials in living things. In fifth grade, students study how matter is cycled through the ecosystem and determine the most important factor for plant growth by isolating each plant with one need. During each of these lessons, all students use technology called ScratchJr and Scratch to code the plant and or animal life cycle. These computer programs were developed by MIT Media Labs to introduce programming language to children ages 5-18 and enable them to create their own interactive stories and games. I help students create animations using block code to show how ecosystems work. Throughout all of my classes, students discuss the merits of growing food, and we often learn that not all plants grow best in all environments. Learning about the evolution of plants and how adaptable they are gives students so much excitement about not only growing plants on Earth but also thinking about growing plants on the moon or Mars.

Last fall, I attended the Utah Science Teaching Association Conference where Temple Grandin was the keynote speaker. She discussed how important it is to have creative engineering in farming especially when we are dealing with animals. Currently, I teach about animal needs, patterns, and cycles in kindergarten, first, third, and fourth grades. Many of my students raise chickens, so it is fun for them to share what they have learned. I hope to share my love of agriculture with students so they know where their food comes from and why it is important to take care of our natural resources.

I teach the Three Dimensions of Science including Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs), Crosscutting Concepts (CCC), and Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs). I use design and journaling as a way to help students model and write about their understanding using both the scientific method as well as the engineering design process. Kindergarten through third grade make models using simple cutouts or design sheets. In fourth and fifth grades, students create journals that they keep for two years so they have something they can refer to when we are connecting concepts from year to year. This helps students track the DCIs for two years to see how their science concepts are connected to previous years’ understanding. I often refer back to second grade standards with my fifth graders and refresh this for them because I am building on concepts—not creating new content for them. It is really beneficial that I have taught these students from kindergarten to fifth grade.

In 2021, I was the recipient of The Utah Office of Energy in Science Award, and I received a grant from Utah Agriculture in the Classroom to teach about plant growth. In 2023, I received a two-year Computing Partnership grant from the Utah STEM Action Center to support after-school clubs and summer camps in the Hurricane valley. I also received the Southern Utah STEM Engineering Teacher of the year award for 2022-2023. I believe that STEM education is important and hope to use my platform as a full-time educator to promote accredited teachers as STEM specialists in every elementary school. Exploring and teaching science and engineering, as well as implementing our elementary school curriculum across six grade levels, has given me a unique perspective of what students know and what they need to know to achieve success when they leave elementary school and enter secondary school. I believe that using multiple modalities of learning will help students take agricultural science into the 21st century. They will not only need a basic understanding of life on Earth, but they will also need to know how to adapt to a changing climate, use creative ways to solve problems, and have a grasp on technology to sustain our world.