Samantha Gordon

I work at the first and only STEM-certified school in New Jersey, and we are a woman-led STEAM team - an all-female team of STEM education, which is really important to us, especially because it is usually a male-centered role in STEM fields. Together, we truly believe in the power of women working together. I advise a code club for coding, as well as an eco club. We teach from kindergarten all the way up to 8th grade, with a lot of outdoor lessons. We have the Hudson River located next to us, so what we like to do is use a phenomenon that the children can relate to. I bring the students to the Hudson River, where we monitor the health of the Hudson River ecosystem. We work closely with other organizations in the area, because we want it to be a partnership in STEM education. I work at a Montessori school, which goes hand-in-hand with the outdoor approach. With my students and my supportive admin, I am able to take my students to the river, where we regularly record water chemistry, such as dissolved oxygen, salinity, turbidity, pH, water temperature - all things that can monitor the health of the ecosystem that we live in. We like to call it the outdoor classroom. We truly feel that the world is our classroom, and the children learn through experience. Right now we have 12 baby roosters that we are taking care of. We have rainbow trout in our classroom, we have caterpillars, we have fish, we have as much as we possibly can, because we know the importance of that connection to nature and making that happen, even in an urban setting. I am also the lead coordinator of our elementary summer makers Camp. I've been lead coordinator for 5 years, and it's maker education - we're teaching kids how to make anything their hearts can think of, whether it's game design, coding, or other projects.