Mrs. Haack's Science
About Me
We've all been scientists since birth - exploring our world. For me this began on a family farm in prairie of southwestern Minnesota. After college in Iowa, I had a couple of years teaching in a middle school in North Minneapolis. I've been teaching high school science in La Crescent since Y2K. I've taught between 5 and 15 years of each of these here: chemistry, biology and physical sciences. Through this life experience, we've learned that we much enjoy the small town life!
We are fortunate to be able to live and work and recreate in the La Crescent-Hokah community. We've been blessed with wonderful neighbors, students and friends - A few of you fit into all of these categories! My dedicated husband works as a video producer for Gundersen Health. We have 2 delightful children in the La Crescent-Hokah school district. Can you imagine your mom as your teacher?! I'll take advice on this!
In the late 1990's I coached several FIRST LEGO league teams of GEMS in Minneapolis to explore space - What an experiment that was! Since 2006, I've been exploring how to best help adult volunteers work with students in grades 4-8 to learn about robotics, teamwork and science through our LEGO league program. We're a constantly changing program - hoping to fill a niche and build life skills in marketing, programming, designing and teamwork!
Influential Explorations:
Conferences - NSTA, ASCD, Blandin, FIRST World, Space Camp, NASA Educator
Podcasts - SciFri, This American Life, Invisibilia
Print Mags - Discover, The Science Teacher
Online - Twitter, Google Certification
Responsibility:
Train a child in who he should be = Help students learn their talents.
Bring our talents to our opportunities.
Practice patience.
Foster independence.
Favorite Explorations:
"What is your oddness?" Answer: I have several! One is separation of words and music; I listen to words or music - actually just words - music is for background. No spoons - even for soup or ice cream. Cannot wait to find out what your oddness is!
How can we keep our teachers in teaching? This is a career that takes time and patience and empathy. It is wonderfully emotional. I want it to be a career as long as Mr. Trnka. If I'm going to do that I need to work with efficiency. I'd like to share a few things I'm using in my classroom to make my work less on my computer and more working with students on their skills. The target audience is teachers - new and old. Parents and students are invited to read along as well. Invited to check it out at www.haappyhaackyscience.com
"What is you failure 2day?" We learn much through our failures, and we fail every single day - several times each day. We open our mouths and say dumb things; we forget things; we are incomplete and imperfect people. We are all learners. I paid my child to get a ClassDojo thumbs down - Sometimes we try to please too much! Success may mean doing something risky! Once when I was a young adult, I lost my connecting flight tickets on the seat of the first plane. It was a late and lonely and expensive flight all alone in a big, big world. This CEO shares her oops with her organization - she describes it here. What is you fail this week?