Episode 4 with Joshua Sneideman
Outline
Developing the Energy Literacy Education Framework
Challenges facing middle school science teachers
Literacy development in science/STEM
Social emotional learning in the science classroom
The book Everyday Superheroes: Women in STEM Careers
Links
Energy Literacy Framework at the Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy https://www.energy.gov/eere/education/energy-literacy-essential-principles-energy-education
To Purchase Everyday Superheroes: Women in STEM Careers
At Better World Books
At Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Everyday-Superheroes-Women-STEM-Careers/dp/1634892046
Transcript
Scott Lee 0:00
Welcome friends and colleagues. Today we're discussing STEM or science, technology, engineering and mathematics, more specifically the role of women in STEM careers with our guest, Joshua Sneideman, who is co-author of the book Everyday superheroes, women in STEM careers. He has also authored several other science related books and curricula. Joshua is currently the Vice President at Learning Blade, a supplemental STEM curriculum toolbox and he is also a former middle school science teacher. Joshua will tell us why he and his co author Erin Twamley are so passionate about their topic of women in STEM careers. But first we discuss why quality STEM instruction should be connected with social emotional learning and literacy development. Joshua Sneideman, welcome to The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast
Joshua Sneideman 0:55
Excited to be here.
Scott Lee 0:56
I want to be sure and talk about your new book Everyday Superheroes, Women in STEM careers. First, could you tell us a little bit about your work at the Department of Energy and the Einstein fellowship?
Joshua Sneideman 1:09
My pleasure. Yes, the Einstein Fellowship is really an incredible professional development opportunity for STEM educators. It was an act of Congress, I believe, in 1992, under the Clinton administration to bring classroom teachers to federal agencies. And so there are Einstein Fellows, often placed in the halls of Congress with senators and congressmen, I was lucky to be placed at the Department of Energy in the office of renewable energy. There's other fellows at NASA, NOAA, NSF and the likes. So my role the Department of Energy was working on clean energy initiatives. My specific program was called the Energy Literacy Initiative. So, talking about the understanding basic fundamental understanding of what is energy, where's it come from, and helping grow the literacy of people around the country?
Scott Lee 1:56
Did that involve developing a curriculum?
Joshua Sneideman 1:59
So there was the Energy Literacy Initiative was part of the United States Global Change Research Program, which is 13 federal agencies have to came together and agreed on what are the main points that's that people should be looking for when they're teaching energy we'd already existed when I got there. And then what I did was develop it further, I created a video series produced a video series in English and in Spanish, I translated the document into Spanish. And then I look for new partnerships and new avenues to help make sure that the energy literacy framework was making it out into public. So working with my colleagues at NOAA, at the White House at HUD to share energy literacy and what it really means
Scott Lee 2:38
That sounds exciting. Is that still available?
Joshua Sneideman 2:41
Yes, you could just Google Energy Literacy Framework or Energy Literacy Initiative, and you'll find of slew of resources. Energy literacy is important in in, in the climate discussion.
Scott Lee 2:51
Absolutely. I started out teaching history in middle school. And one of the things that I noticed when I taught was that we really were not encouraged to ask the big questions in social studies until really high school, it was more about memorizing dates and events and just learning about famous people not really what they did or why it was important. You started out as a middle school science teacher, was your plan always to teach middle school science?
Joshua Sneideman 3:23
So yes, I love Middle School. I, before I got into teaching, I was a career switcher. So I had a degree in geology and worked as a geologist. Okay. But then career switched over to teaching my student teaching was in fifth grade. And that was not the grade for me. And I spent some time with the lower grades, and I loved the lower grades. But something about Middle School is just the right fit. You meet most middle school teachers, and they say the same thing.
Scott Lee 3:46
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Joshua Sneideman 3:48
It takes a strange, strange person to be a middle school teacher. And I guess I'm that strange breed.
Scott Lee 3:53
Did you run into, in science, the same kind of problems that I mentioned in history? Or were you fortunate enough to where you really feel like you were encouraged to do deep worthwhile science in your classroom?
Joshua Sneideman 4:07
It's a bit of both. I think I was given the free range to go as deep as I wanted to, and could go strangely enough not to get too political with you, Scott. But I was teaching climate change. And I was teaching energy concepts, which was a passion of mine and environmentalism. And some parents don't want you teaching that. So the part where it's fluffy, not fluffy was did I have support of my administration to teach my conviction of scientific principles and what they tell us about the world we live in today? I was lucky that in all scenarios that were I taught in four different schools, I had leadership that supported me teaching science,
Scott Lee 4:44
What are some critical things that science teachers should be focused on that they're not?
Joshua Sneideman 4:50
I think one of the more critical elements that science teachers should focus on that maybe they're not is the relevance to the students future, right. So we teach You know, Newton's theories and Einstein theories or whatever we teach different principles of science, but we don't discuss how it actually impacts you in your everyday life of the 100 kids, you might teach in a school year or 50, or whatever number, what percentage are going to go be scientists? 5, 10, 12%, whatever. What about the other 88% of students in my getting them to want to always have a scientific mind, I think you would plant that seed and water it is not having encouraging them that every student needs to be a scientist, but encouraging every student to recognize science in their daily lives and the relevance to the world we live in.
Scott Lee 5:35
We all use science all the time. I mean, right? Looking at the equipment, the podcast with
Joshua Sneideman 5:40
your podcast right now geeked out.
Scott Lee 5:43
You've also touched on literacy, and literacy and science. How does literacy development fit in with science? Obviously, everybody needs to read.
Joshua Sneideman 5:54
I'm really glad you asked that question. So the reason I'm glad you asked that question is because I feel too many teachers feel the word literacy is the domain of the English teacher. And what we now know, or what we've always known is that reading literacy, writing is the critical component to college and career readiness. So reading informational text, which is a big shift. Now, scientific text, that is an important part of the science teachers domain is to work on literacy development, but it should they should be thinking about it as if they're an English teacher as well, right? That they're truly developing not only the disciplinary literacy, the scientific literacy, but the general literacy of the student, are they reading? Well, how can I help them read well, in my choosing grade level text in my in my meeting them where they are, because if I'm asking them to read things that are well out of their range, because I'm a science teacher, and it's great science content, I'm not helping with their literacy development if they can't capture it. So I think every teacher math teachers included need to really be considered themselves literacy coaches, every teacher needs to do that.
Scott Lee 6:54
It reminds me of a time and this really happened on an evaluation one time, I was told, because I had done a reading activity in my history class, I was told you don't teach reading, you teach social studies, and you are on the wrong page in your textbook.
Joshua Sneideman 7:11
Well, I will tell you, mine is hindsight. 2020. Right. I was not the best literacy science teacher, because I would love hands on I love the project based and I miss the quintessential element of literacy. Now looking back on it, I say, Well, I could have done a better job of integrating a more focused approach to daily focused approach to reading in my science classroom.
Scott Lee 7:31
I've made that mistake many times too.
Joshua Sneideman 7:34
Yeah, you know, every teacher, unfortunately, deals with the problem of large percentage of their students are below grade level. And so if I have below grade level above grade level, then I have to understand literacy development in order to reach all my students.
Scott Lee 7:48
Absolutely. You also have been an advocate for social emotional learning. And we're going to touch on that a little bit more when we talk about your book in just a minute as well. But before we do that, what are your beliefs regarding social emotional learning and social emotional development in a science classroom? Because a lot of times, I think people think, oh, science is just about the content. So tell us a little bit about your your thoughts on social emotional learning.
Joshua Sneideman 8:16
Sure, appreciate your work in this area. I would say that my thoughts on it are that it is it is probably as important as the science content itself. In science class, we now understand Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences. And obviously social intelligence and emotional intelligence is as important as mathematical numeracy or scientific literacy and what have you. And so we want to be making sure that we're developing all of our students multiple intelligences working and that can also aid in differentiating the instruction in the classroom. But the shift in science has been towards stem right many science teachers are now the stem focal points of their schools, then stem is all about working together, working on projects working in these challenging problem based learning environments. And what a What a great opportunity for social emotional growth when students are working in teams collaborating, solving difficult challenges that will cause conflict. I guess my belief is that it's it is the job of the science teacher to create environments where you can focus on building social emotional health. If I had a choice between a student leaving with incredible science content knowledge or incredible emotional social health, I would choose I would choose the ladder and then hope that they got the science along the way.
Scott Lee 9:27
My father is a retired engineer. Every time I went to his office, sometimes it was quiet sometimes it was loud. They were always working but nobody did anything by themselves. That piece of it can't forget about.
Joshua Sneideman 9:39
No not it should not be forgotten about and I also do a lot of workforce stuff with in my current role, what we hear is that the number one missing skills in college bound students and future workforce are the soft skills. Can you work with people? Do you know how to communicate? Do you kow how to share ideas you know, appropriately? Can you work on a team? All that's gonna come through your s social and emotional learning that's developed as a part of the curriculum. I talk a lot about the hidden curriculum, of course, and the social emotional is often the hidden curriculum. It's what we're trying to do. But no one's writing it down as their goal for the year. The more social emotional, could be explicit curriculum with goals and benchmarks, the better our students will be
Scott Lee 10:22
very important, and something that we just don't talk about enough.
Joshua Sneideman 10:25
We're on the same page.
Scott Lee 10:26
Yeah. And continue-continue your advocacy. So tell us a little about your book Everyday Superheroes: Women in STEM?
Joshua Sneideman 10:37
ErinYeah, well, I should say it's our book.
Scott Lee 10:38
It was sorry, yes, you're the co author. Yes.
Joshua Sneideman 10:41
And it was co authored with Erin Twamley, who I've had the pleasure of writing two other books with Erin and I were at the Department of Energy, we worked on something called STEM Cafes, it was speed dating, with women in STEM professions, with young students trying to make sure that students had role models, which were women. And so we worked with the national labs to host events all around the country to help students recognize students in those areas, see, oh, my God, look at all these incredible female role models in the sciences in the STEM fields. So that was where Erin and I started, we work together at the Department of Energy and renewable energy, and we worked on that project. And then we both left are all close to the same time, we kept in contact, and we wrote a book together. And then we wrote another book. And then to put this book Everyday Superheroes, we always talked about it, but we never wrote it. And then finally, we did a Kickstarter, which raised about $8,000, which covered the cost of the graphics and the initial print run. And then we just spent about two years writing it. The book itself covers 20 plus women of diverse backgrounds in diverse careers. It's an A through Z, so we sort of look at the astronomer through zoologists, sort of thing, but we're looking at everyday women. And I want you to think about it this way. Scott, my daughter, who would love robotics love to do robotics, when she grows up. If she met a woman who does robotics, she'd be like, Oh, that's amazing. You're a woman in robotics. That's a special thing. I want my daughter or my granddaughter at least, but really my daughter, I want her to think it's an everyday occurrence, right? That it's no longer women in STEM is some exceptional. You're the you're the needle in the haystack. No, it's everyday women are out there in STEM doing amazing things. And we should stop telling young girls in schools anything otherwise. So the title of the book is everyday superheroes and the women profiled our everyday women, most of them you've never heard of before. And that's the point.
Scott Lee 12:28
So is there one in particular whose story you'd like to share?
Joshua Sneideman 12:32
Sure. One of the women in the book that is just an inspiration to me, and I've shared that inspiration with other teachers and they've taken it on and been inspired by her as well as Dr. Wangari Maathai is a Kenyan biologist who started the Green Belt Movement. She taught local Kenyan women to plant trees and to take care of the forests. Through her efforts, they planted millions of trees in Kenya and created they call it the Green Belt because they literally planted so many trees that it became a greener belt in Africa. She was tortured for her efforts. She you know, put in jail and beat she overcame that. And it was an inspiration in Kenya and around the world, she actually did win the Nobel Prize, just a truly incredible story of someone seeing a simple problem. These women were traveling very long distances to gather wood for their fire and cooking. And she said, Well, what if we planted more trees, then wood would be more plentiful. So it started with with a pretty basic observation. And it turned into a movement and she changed their nation. And I think that's just one example of an environmentalist. So she's on in the book as the environmentalist example, excited to have her in that book, she tells a great story, I'd love to tell it sure about a forest fire. All these animals are looking at this forest fire saying, Oh my goodness, what are we going to do? What do we do? Everybody's looking to elephants looking to draft looking. And a hummingbird flies by with a drop of water and drops it on the forest fire runs back to the pond and keeps going back and forth. And so it's called the hummingbird effect, which is if every person did their little bit, it could put out the fire at the elephant did his bit in the draft at his bit. And the hummingbird that individual each one of us did our little bit we'd make a change.
Scott Lee 14:09
If everybody recycles. That's right. One of the other things that that I noticed in your book is that you've got STEM superpowers.
Joshua Sneideman 14:18
yes,
Scott Lee 14:19
asking the readers of the book to identify their superpowers. There are several if you could tell us what they are. And then there's one in particular I'd like to talk about
Joshua Sneideman 14:31
Sure. So we listed two superpowers of a STEM superhero as observation, imagination and curiosity, problem solving abilities, the ability to collaborate data collection and analysis and then finally, the ability to communicate.
Scott Lee 14:46
There are a couple that are not part of the scientific method.
Joshua Sneideman 14:50
Yes,
Scott Lee 14:50
I noticed.
Joshua Sneideman 14:51
Yes.
Scott Lee 14:51
Why imagination and curiosity and why collaboration as STEM superpowers and you may want to do Let's talk about one or the other, or both.
Joshua Sneideman 15:02
So imagination and curiosity, in my opinion, the essence of a great student, right? So if a student raises their hand to ask a question, they're questioning, they're curious about what you're teaching them. That means you're doing a good lesson, and it's something powerful is happening. And I also believe that's the essence of science. I love Einstein and how he discovered the theory of relativity was by looking at a clock, he just kept looking at this clock tower in Switzerland. And he kept looking at it looking at and thinking about people looking at the same clock, but on a train. And he he just stayed with questions, and he was curious. And so his curiosity discovered some amazing things. I think you can't be a STEM Superhero, if you're not imaginative. And if you're not curious about the world around you, I think that's quintessential to the career of in STEM, and then collaboration we no longer live in, in a world where like you said, People do their work in cubicles, isolated, least not scientists and STEM professionals. Most of the world's greatest problems are being tackled by teams of people that might not even be on the same continent. But they're working on the same problem, the ability to collaborate going back to social emotional health, and learning. That's an important skill in the 21st century.
Scott Lee 16:11
Yeah, that it's more than just understanding the scientific method and you take it that extra step. Yeah.
Joshua Sneideman 16:18
I'm glad you saw notice.
Scott Lee 16:20
Joshua, it has been a pleasure. Thank you for joining us today on The Thoughtful Teacher podcast.
Joshua Sneideman 16:25
Scott. It's been a pleasure has been all mine and thank you for the work you're doing.
Scott Lee 16:29
We would like to thank our partner, the CWK Network. This has been episode number four. The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is hosted and produced by R. Scott Lee who retains copyright. We encourage diverse opinions, however, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of producer, partners or underwriters. Guest was not compensated for appearance, nor did guest or guest's organization pay to appear. Transcripts are available at our website, thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com. Underwriting and sponsorship opportunities or other inquiries may also be made at our website, thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com, please follow The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast on Twitter @drrscottlee.
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