After seeing Director Sam Stier give the keynote address at MakerCon in Utah last fall, the directors of SpectrUM science museum in Missoula, Montana, reached out to see if Mr. Stier would speak with local area teachers. SpectrUM then led a cohort of teachers in weekly meetings throughout the spring, discussing one chapter of Stier’s Engineering Education for the Next Generation: A Nature-Inspired Approach at a time. In May, Stier visited the group in-person, and led the teachers in a half-day professional development experience. “This was so much more than what I expected,” said a science and engineering teacher from Sentinel High School, in Missoula. Mr. Stier also was pleased. “The curricula we provide free to teachers has now been used in 46 U.S. states and over 70 countries. I am working with teachers in Guam, The Czech Republic, Ireland, and Turkey who are interested in Nature-enriched approaches to formal teaching. I rarely get to do anything local. So this was a real treat.”
Teachers explore the forests around Missoula for engineering ideas in an activity called “Hunting and Gathering for Ideas.”
