Meet Jennie Warmouth, 2024 PAEMST State Finalist
Jennie Warmouth, PhD, teaches second grade at Spruce Elementary School in the Edmonds School District
What has been your personal journey on the way to excellence in teaching math/science?
I have always felt connected to the animals that we share our planet with. As a young teacher, I became increasingly interested in how my elementary school students seemed to relate to, make sense of, and empathize with the companion animals in their lives. This curiosity led me to pursue and ultimately complete my PhD in Educational Psychology: Learning Sciences, Human Development and Cognition at the University of Washington (2017). My doctoral fieldwork included a research assistantship under Dr. John Bransford at the LIFE CENTER, wherein I spent one full year observing 5th-grade teachers implementing problem-based biological science units framed by socio-cognitive and socio-cultural approaches to learning. I observed how effective and engaging classroom-based science instruction can be when the learner’s own culturally based repertoires of practice are centered. My commitment to justice-centered science instruction came into sharp focus through my multi-year role as a teacher advisor within the Critical and Cultural Ambitious Science Teaching (c2AST) partnership between Edmonds School District and the University of Washington. My passions for life science and visual storytelling intersected when I began to partner with National Geographic, first as a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow and now as a National Geographic Explorer. Through these roles, I have been able to conduct fieldwork in Arctic Svalbard and the Galapagos Islands to connect my community of learners to the critical environmental issues facing those regions of the world.
What is one concept that excites your students and why?
My second-grade students are passionate about wildlife conservation and the reduction of single-use plastic pollution. They are excited by these concepts because feel CONNECTED to them. They bring their family’s funds of knowledge into this work and work together to make changes in our local community and beyond. My amazing students have engineered enrichment items to support the rehabilitation of injured and orphaned American black bear cubs receiving lifesaving care at the Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) wildlife rehabilitation hospital located just one mile from our school, have successfully changed our school-wide single-use plastic policy, and host an annual international design contest in which they curate a conservation-focused visual art show at the National Nordic Museum.
How do your lesson planning and teaching practices engage and support all students?
Our K-6 school is home to 650 students who collectively speak 42 world languages. My colleagues and I strive to design instructional experiences that center our dynamic students’ academic, social, and emotional learning goals. I assume a student-centered approach to teaching wherein my students’ questions drive our inquiries. This approach requires content expertise, instructional flexibility, and a deep respect for my learners’ lived experiences.
How do the math and science concepts and skills you are teaching students help to prepare them for later learning, careers, and life?
The STEM concepts and skills that my students are learning today will help them grow into tomorrow’s far-reaching decision-makers. I challenge my students to think critically across multiple perspectives and scales. We examine scientific concepts through cultural, historical, and ecological lenses across local, regional, and global scales. When learners are provided with authentic opportunities to examine problems of consequential concern, they are inspired to ask critical questions, test ideas, develop explanations, evaluate their understanding, and innovate new solutions.
What can math and science teachers do to make those disciplines more culturally sustaining for students with diverse identities and experiences?
Science teachers can embrace an expansive view of human meaning-making that seeks to contribute toward family and community thriving. Co-designing learning approaches invite students and families to bring their ways of knowing and sensemaking to the forefront. Justice-centered science pedagogy is a theoretical framework that addresses inequities in science education and encourages teachers to create learning experiences that address intersecting systems of oppression. Teachers who wish to learn more can access the STEM Teaching Tools, an NSF-funded Open Education Resource (OER), developed by Philip Bell and his team at the University of Washington Institute for Science + Math Education: https://stemteachingtools.org/tools
What advice would you give to parents, families, or caregivers who want to support their students’ math and science learning?
My advice to parents, families, and caregivers who want to support their students’ math and science learning is to follow your child’s curiosity! Learn alongside them. Share your family’s ways of knowing. Look for everyday opportunities to illuminate the interconnectedness of our world and to acknowledge the critical role that we all play in maintaining its delicate balance.
