Education student helping children foster interest in STEM subjects

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Education student helping children foster interest in STEM subjects

By Jim Carlson

Maria Rebecca Duiker is interested in promoting STEMrelated courses because she believes it to be critically important for others younger than she to have rich experiences in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The third-year elementary and early childhood education major in Penn State’s College of Education is an intern in the Teaching Elementary Science Leadership Academy (TESLA). She also has a paid internship at Discovery Space Museum in State College where elementary and early childhood education majors can build confidence in STEM teaching and take on leadership roles.

“There are a lot of reasons why STEM is important in the classroom but, primarily, if we are going to create a new generation that is able to make discoveries and contribute to the knowledge base that we have right now, we need students in classrooms who are becoming experienced in STEM-related subjects,” Duiker said.

“Giving children a space where they’re able to engage in discovery will capture their interest, and they might grow up to be the next generation of scientists, doctors or other STEM professionals. STEM involves a lot of creativity … fostering creativity in our young children is vital to create a society that is better able to engage with writing, reading, the sciences and math in critical ways.”

Carmen Vanderhoof, assistant teaching professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, said the TESLA program was re-launched in January 2021 with the mission to provide access to STEM education to local families at Discovery Space. A contributing factor, she said, is that the COVID-19 pandemic forced many elementary schools to reduce instructional time for science, further increasing inequities.

“Our TESLA interns gained valuable teaching experience by planning and teaching workshops, volunteering on the exhibit floor at Discovery Space and helping with day camps,” Vanderhoof said. “One of our main program goals is for our pre-service teachers to develop leadership and STEM teaching skills so that one day when they get their own classrooms, they can act as advocates for elementary STEM education.”

The volunteer hours at Discovery Space and experience in a classroom-like setting appealed to Duiker, a State College Area High School graduate who also is completing a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages certification.

“When I saw this opportunity to practice teaching STEM-related courses to children, I thought it would be great for me to have some practice with an area that I’ve always loved but in which I haven’t

Photos provided

Maria Rebecca Duiker conducts an experiment at the Discovery Space Museum to help students interested in STEM subjects.

had much educational experience,” Duiker said. “I knew I had to jump on the opportunity.”

The recipient of a Student Engagement Network (SEN) grant, Duiker spends her Fridays at Discovery Space and acts as a docent for the museum’s marine science center.

“After I was accepted, the marine biologist at Discovery Space taught me lots of fun facts and information about tank maintenance so that I could effectively lead children through certain discoveries while they are exploring the space,” Duiker explained.

“We have a microscope that kids look at and examine specimens. We have a lot of artifacts that children can touch, like different types of shells, a sand dollar, shark teeth, things like that. It’s fun to see the children’s engagement and excitement about seeing something that they may not have had access to before.”

Vanderhoof noted that Duiker will present to other interns lessons learned from marine life exhibits along with ideas for lessons on aquatic life.

“This will be one of many ways TESLA empowers our pre-service teachers to take on leadership roles, develop expertise in STEM teaching and broaden their subject-area knowledge,” Vanderhoof said. “And most importantly, the interns will gain experiences working directly with children and families, showing them how much fun science learning can be.”

After Duiker’s SEN grant expires at semester’s end, she is going to Puerto Rico to do linguistic research through the Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) program and Penn State’s Center for Language Science. PIRE seeks to catalyze a higher level of international engagement in the U.S. science and engineering community.

After graduation in 2024, Duiker said she plans to join the Peace Corps for two years in the education sector and teach English. Her father is from the Netherlands and her mother is from Spain.

“I grew up originally speaking Spanish and then transitioned once I got into school,” she said. “Just seeing how my language developed that way influenced me to want to be able to help children who were also in that situation, to feel more comfortable and more at ease, learning both languages simultaneously.”

Duiker also assisted Vanderhoof in designing and distributing 190 STEM kits for students in the Hazleton One Community Center.

“We would get the materials and we’d set up the kits and send them over so that the students could use them at some of their STEM nights and work through a variety of STEM activities,” Duiker said.

Duiker said Penn State and the College of Education have a resource to share with schools in surrounding areas and support STEM education in general.

“But we also have a lot of future teachers who are really willing and wanting to engage in volunteer experiences or wanting to engage in substituting experiences at the schools, which then provides students with kind of a fresh perspective into STEM,” she said. “And it gives students a lot of younger teacher role models to look up to who are also interested in STEM-related subjects.”

Photos provided

Youth, sometimes with their parents and sometimes independently, participate in a variety of experiments under the guidance of Maria Rebecca Duiker and other College of Education interns at Discovery Space Museum.