The Science Companion Academic Advisory Board comprises a group of the nation's leading educators and theorists on K-12 inquiry-based science. The Advisory Board has been charged with the dual challenges to help shape the Science Companion curriculum to reflect the very best ideas and practices in inquiry-based curriculum, and to further the work of inquiry-based science education around the country.
Harold Pratt is a private consultant working in all areas of science education. He currently is a Disciplinary Literacy Fellow in Science at the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. From May 1996 until July 1999, he was the Director of Science Projects in the Center for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Education at the National Research Council (NRC). He has had extensive administrative and curriculum development experience at the local and national levels. Prior to joining the Center, he directed the revision of Science for Life and Living, at the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study in Colorado Springs, Colorado. From October 1992 to December 1994, he served as a Senior Program Officer at the NRC for the National Science Education Standards Project. From 1986 to 1991 he was the Executive Director of Curriculum for the Jefferson County (CO) Public Schools, the largest district in Colorado with an enrollment of over 80,000 students. Prior to that, he served the district as the Science Coordinator for 23 years. He has co-authored or directed the development of three science textbooks, a book on educational leadership, and published numerous articles and book chapters. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was selected by the National Science Education Leadership Association (formerly the National Science Supervisors Association) as the first recipient of the Nation's Outstanding Science Supervisor Award. The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) honored him with the Distinguished Service to Science Education Award in 1999 and the Carleton Award in 2005. He was president of NSTA in 2001-2002.
Marsha Barber is a private K-12 science consultant currently working on two Math and Science Partnership grants sponsored by the Department of Education and NSF. Both of these projects involve teaching middle school teachers content courses to help them become "highly qualified." During the previous eight years, Marsha was the K-12 Science Coordinator for Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado. Major projects in that position involved implementing a new elementary science program in 100 elementary schools with approximately 2,000 K-6 teachers; training teachers; writing new curriculum to complete the K-12 scope and sequence; and working on State-level standardized tests and performance expectation documents.
Prior professional work involved writing curriculum at the Colorado School of Mines in a project titled the Denver Earth Science Project and for two Earth Science textbooks published by Scott Foresman and Company. Marsha's teaching experience spanned 21 years in three school districts where she taught physical science, earth science, physics, and oceanography.
Patricia Harmon has been involved in education as a classroom teacher, teacher leader and staff developer for more than 15 years. Her involvement in science education reform began in 1995 as an Instructional Specialist working with the National Science Foundations Urban Systemic Program. The Urban Systemic Program addressed the issues and challenges of institutionalizing mathematics, science and technology reform across all schools in the district. In this role Ms. Harmon worked with staff to develop and implement professional development for San Francisco Unified School district teachers and worked closely with centralized staff to enhance the effectiveness of the program and its partnership with school sites and institutions of higher education.
In 1995 Ms. Harmon was selected to become a member of the systemic science assessment team. Together, with the California Systemic Initiatives Collaborative now known as the Partnership for Assessing Standards Based Science (PASS), under the direction of Kathy Comfort and West Ed, she assisted in developing standards based science performance assessments, scoring rubrics, scoring these types of assessments and in training other teachers.
Through her involvement with PASS, as well as having participated in many district designed professional development trainings, she has developed a deep understanding of the National Science Education Standards, the AAAS Benchmarks for Science Literacy, district adopted science curriculum, district standards and assessment strategies related to effective science instruction.
Recently Ms. Harmon participated as a fellow in the National Leadership Academy, under the direction of Susan Loucks-Horsley and served as a member of the National Academies Committee on K-12 Science Education (COSE). In 2003 she received her M.A. in Education from the University of California at Berkeley and is currently serving as an Administrative Intern in the San Francisco Unified School District.
A long time educator, Michael taught Science in San Jose, California where he also worked in developing the first set of Technology in the Curriculum materials for the State of California. He left the classroom in 1986 to join Apple Computer's Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT) research and development project, serve as Apple's Education Competitive Analyst, and lead major curriculum related marketing initiatives. During his tenure at Apple, he remained a contributor to science education through many projects including being one of the authors of California's Science Framework of 1990.
Michael left Apple Computer to pursue the development of a technology of his design that dynamically indicates the relationship between curriculum, curriculum standards, and instructional resources for which he received patents in 1998. As founder of Mediaseek Technologies, Inc. he laid the groundwork for many of the innovations in standards implementation and instructional resource integration that followed. He continued the development of tools for children and educators as Director of Education Business Development at N2H2 and VP and GM of Brainium Technologies in the following years where he worked on challenges associated with sustainable 1:1 computing in schools.
As founder of Educational Systemics Inc., Michael and his associates create lasting change in how we learn and educate through their work with corporations and educational institutions. Their clients have benefited through increased efficiency, improved understanding of the K-12 market, improved ability to identify and reach their core customers, and the development of innovative yet sustainable solutions. Their diverse expertise representing educational and corporate leadership, market analysis, development, instructional design, and tested knowledge of all facets of K-12 education are married with a vision that generates success for their clients while advancing their vision for education.
Michael remains active in the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) of which he was an Education Board member for eight years -- co-chair for three and he has helped guide the development of the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) Association as he begins his sixth year on its executive board. Michael also has an appointment at Western Washington University as a Research Associate in Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education and has worked with Larry Lowery, Ann Brown, and Kathy Metz on various science curriculum development and research projects.
Page is currently the Senior Program Director for Science at the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance (MMS) where she consults with school districts and organizations throughout Maine and nationally, as well as the incoming 2008-2009 President of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). Her work centers primarily on leadership, professional development, and the development of tools and resources to support science teaching and learning. She is the principal investigator and project director of three National Science Foundation funded projects including Curriculum Topic Study- A Systematic Approach to Utilizing National Standards and Cognitive Research, The Northern New England Co-Mentoring Network, and PRISMS: Phenomena and Representations for the Instruction of Science in Middle Schools. She is also the Project Director of the L-SILL Project: Linking Science, Inquiry, and Language Literacy. She is also the primary author of Science Curriculum Topic Study- Bridging the Gap Between Standards and Practice (Corwin Press, 2005), Mathematics Curriculum Topic Study- Bridging the Gap Between Standards and Practice (Corwin Press, in press), and Probing Students' Ideas in Science- Volume 1 (NSTA Press, in press).
Page serves on several regional and national committees and advisory boards for science education. She is a Fellow of the first cohort of the National Academy for Science Education Leadership and serves as a mentor and learning colleague for new fellows. She has also taught inquiry science as an adjunct instructor for the University of Maine. Prior to working at the MMSA, Page taught middle and high school science for fifteen years. During that time she served two terms as President of her state science teachers association, District II Director for NSTA, and two terms on the NSTA Executive Board. She received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Secondary Science Teaching in 1992, the Milken National Educator Award in 1993, and the AT&T Governor's Fellow for Technology in 1994. Prior to entering teaching, she was a research assistant at the Jackson Laboratory of Mammalian Genetics in Bar Harbor, Maine, where she worked for Dr. Leonard Shultz on Severe, Combined Immunodeficiency Diseases.
Michael Klentschy is currently the Superintendent of Schools of the El Centro School District in El Centro, California. He has served in this capacity since February 1994. He has also served in teaching and administrative positions in the Los Angeles Unified School District from 1966 to 1985 and the Pasadena Unified School District from 1985 to 1994. He received his doctorate degree in educational research and evaluation from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Dr. Klentschy is currently the Principal Investigator of the Imperial Valley CaMSP Science Project and is Co-Director of the California Science Subject Matter Project Regional Center in Imperial Valley. He was the Principal Investigator for the NSF funded Valle Imperial Project in Science LSC. Dr. Klentschy served as Co-PI on several NSF funded elementary science initiatives with CAPSI at the California Institute of Technology. He serves on several advisory boards including CAPSI, National Science Resources Center-LASER, Center for Assessment and Evaluation for Student Learning, and the Exploratorium.
Dr. Klentschy serves as an instructor at San Diego State University Graduate School of Education, teaching and conducting research on alternate forms of assessment in elementary science. Dr. Klentschy is part of a university research team studying the longitudinal effects of inquiry-based science programs on student achievement including the science-literacy connection. He has authored several research articles on these topics. Dr. Klentschy is also working with Dr. James Stigler from the University of California, Los Angeles in the development of video-based technology for pre-service, professional development and lesson study applications.
Dr. Klentschy was named the Southern California Superintendent of the Year by the Association of California School Administrators in 2001. The California Science Teacher's Association also acknowledged his efforts by naming him the Administrator of the Year in 2001. In November 2004, an international jury in Saint Etienne, France named Dr. Klentschy as co-laureate for the inaugural Le Prix Purkwa -- (International prize for the scientific literacy of the children of the planet). The National Science Education Leadership Association named him Administrator of the Year for 2005.
Jean May-Brett is State Coordinator for Louisiana's "Building a Presence for Science." Jean served as the Assistant Director of Educational Television Technology at Louisiana Public Broadcasting, Baton Rouge, Louisiana from 1998-2003 and was the Project Director for the award winning SERC Enviro-Tacklebox and Literacy and Learning projects funded by the US DoE. During her 25-years of classroom teaching Jean taught Earth Science, Environmental Science, and Mathematics to students in New York and Louisiana at the middle and high school levels.
Jean is a Past President of the Louisiana Science Teachers Association (LSTA) and serves as the State Coordinator for the Exxon/NSTA Building a Presence for Science Program. Jean is a past president of the Southern Association of Marine Educators (SAME) and the National Marine Educators Association (NMEA). A former President of Louisiana Environmental Educators Association (LEEA), she is currently serving on the Louisiana Environmental Education Commission. She is a members of several agency, foundation, and organization education committees.
She has served on the writing team for numerous curriculum projects. She completed the Train the Trainer and Initial Preparation of Environmental Educators courses provided by the EPA at the National Conservation Training Center and secured EPA funding to provide two Tools for the Non-Formal Educator workshops to introduce standards and benchmarks to informal educators in Louisiana. Jean is a facilitator for Project Learning Tree, Project Wild and Aquatic Wild, Project WET and Healthy Water Healthy People and a Peer Trainer for Project Maury.
For over 25 years Dr. Mark St. John has been the leader of Inverness Research Associates. In this role he has developed an approach to grantmaking and evaluation that has become widely known and valued in the field. Serving as a liaison between projects and funders, he has helped projects better understand their purpose and design, refine their work, and make their case to funders. He has also helped foundations better understand the contributions made by their funded projects and the role their projects play in the broader educational landscape.
While the projects of Inverness Research vary in nature and scale, they all focus on research that seeks to provide a better understanding of investments made in the improvement of education. . The portfolio of Inverness Research includes projects that focus on policy, curriculum, teacher education, assessment, research and informal learning. In terms of disciplines the work of Inverness Research includes mathematics, science, technology education, informal leaning and writing.
In the past two decades Dr. St. John and his colleagues at Inverness Research have designed and implemented over 200 project evaluations. Their work ranges from the study of large scale initiatives undertaken by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education to the evaluation of individual science museum exhibits. They have been involved in studying professional development and teacher leadership networks, curriculum design projects, informal science education efforts, multi-institutional partnerships and centers, and systemic reform initiatives.
Some Inverness research studies focus more broadly on understanding the educational landscape and identifying the role of grantmaking within that landscape. Inverness Research has been involved in national and state studies of new teachers; of the status of teachers and teaching; of the quality of classroom instruction; of curriculum adoption, selection and implementation; and of the capacities existing in districts and schools that are requisite to the success of local improvement efforts.
In addition to his evaluation and research activities Dr. St. John also advises philanthropies about ways they can better understand and improve their investments in educational improvement. Over the past decade he has helped to advise the National Science Foundation, the Stuart Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Annenberg/CPB foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the US Department of Education.
Dr. Jerry Valadez is the K-12 Science and After School Coordinator for Fresno Unified School District and President for the National Science Education Leadership Association. He has been professionally involved with science or science education for the last thirty years. He is a former medical technologist, microbiologist, high school and middle school science teacher and school site administrator.
Professional Preparation: Ed.D.-Doctorate in Educational Leadership: University of California, Davis and California State University, Fresno -- 2003; Professional Administrative Services Credential: CSU Fresno 1991; MA -- Educational Administration and Evaluation: CSU Fresno 1991; Secondary Single Subject Teaching Credential, Life Science and Chemistry-1980; BS - Animal Science with Biology Option; Minor in Chemistry: CSU Fresno 1979; Cross-cultural, Language and Academic Development (CLAD) Certificate, 1989; He holds credentials in biology, chemistry, and professional administrative services.
Jerry has also served and serves on numerous State, National, and International committees and advisory boards, including an appointment to the National Academy of Science from 2000 - 2003. In 2001 he also served as special advisor to South Korea in developing the first joint international high school summer science academy, which was held in Seoul, South Korea during summer 2002. Jerry also serves as chair of the Toyota Tapestry Grants for Teachers program and helped create the newest category, Literacy Connections in Science. In addition he is also a contributing author on a number of successful grants funded by the National Science Foundation, CPEC, CDE, and the U.S. Department of Education. Other honors received by Jerry include the Cal Alive 2001 Educator of the Year, the National Science Administrator of the Year in 2000, the California Science Administrator Supporting Science in 1997, and the ACSA Region VII Curriculum and Instruction Administrator of the Year in 2003.
Marsha was the K-12 science program specialist in the Bureau of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment of the Florida Department of Education for the past 11 years. In this position she provided leadership in state initiatives that include implementation of curriculum, development of standards and assessment, laboratory safety monitoring and professional development in these areas. Marsha earned a Masters degree in zoology from the University of South Florida with research in reproductive physiology of mammals.
Prior to her position at state science consultant, Marsha was a science teacher and a part-time science researcher. She has participated in a Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program as delegate to Japan, in a Leadership Institute of the National Research Council, and as a teaching fellow at the Research Science Institute in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California, and George Washington University. Her honors in teaching include the Florida Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching and Outstanding Biology Teacher for Florida Award. She has served as a board member and secretary of the Council of State Science Supervisors (CSSS) and is currently is the Florida coordinator and CSSS facilitator for the Building a Presence for Science initiative of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). Marsha has served as the District V director for NSTA (2001-2004) and is currently a member of the executive board of the Florida Association of Science Supervisors, Florida Association of Science Teachers and the Florida Foundation for Future Scientists. She is an active member of the National Safety Indexing Project.