About Mrs. Brinchek

Hi! My name is Mrs. Brinchek and I am the Science Specialist at Abbotts Creek Elementary School. The science program I have developed is in collaboration with primary teachers, with a focus on Green S.T.E.M. and Environmental Literacy. What does that mean? Glad you asked! My core belief is to excite students at a young age about the environment. Children are natural explorers, when you connect their curriculum to the natural world, utilizing exploration and inquiry based learning, you foster their love of science, technology, engineering and math (S.T.E.M). The National Wildlife Foundation has coined this connection of environment and S.T.E.M as Green S.T.E.M. "Green STEM is built upon a body of research that consistently shows that students who are engaged in environment-based subjects in school will out-perform students who are not participating in environmental programs. Moreover, they will be more interested in and enthusiastic about learning science, technology, engineering and math" (Taken from the National Wildlife Federation).

So who am I? I am a Professional Geologist, Environmental Educator, Teacher and Mom. I spent many years working for Environmental Consulting firms remediating contaminated sites around the country. As fun as that sounds, I always felt like I should be doing more to make an impact on the world. My interest in teaching although always there, was fully realized with the birth of my two boys. At this point I realized that if I could affect change in more than one person through my experiences I could achieve more than what I could accomplish in my former profession. Teaching kids about the environment with hands-on learning would create a ripple effect, impassioning kids to achieve great things while planting seeds of environmental stewardship that they will hopefully share and carry with them throughout their lives.