2019: More Ambassadors, More Fellows, More Monitoring, More Great Work!

2019 was busy.

This past year, we added another three sets of teacher ambassadors, bringing the total number to 47. Our new website has a page for each and every one; I think you’ll enjoy getting to know them. And of course, while it was painful to say goodbye to Brad Hoge, who got the Supporting Teachers program off to such a good start, we are thrilled to have found Lin Andrews to help these master teachers take their ability to train their peers to new heights.

Along with growing our group of ambassadors, we introduced our Graduate Student Outreach Fellowship initiative. We now have two cohorts of fellows in the midst of their training and a third about to begin. They’re learning science communication and outreach skills through a bi-weekly seminar and by doing the actual work of outreach. Our new website features activity kits they’ve begun to develop, which sit alongside a set of fun, engaging, and informative hands-on activities that have already been developed by our Director of Community Science Education Kate Carter, our new Program Coordinator Emma Doctors, and their merry band of volunteers. It isn’t easy to make evolution and climate change come to life, but Kate and company have done it with slime, colored blocks, role-playing games, and myriad objects that scream out to be played with.

Collage: an eye dropper, a teacher holding a sign, and a youth engaged in an activity.

Photos, l to r, by Brian Miller, Paul Oh, Dave Strauss

Last year also saw a spate of legislation challenging science education—18 bills, in fact, that were defeated or defused with NCSE’s help. In 2020, we anticipate another round of efforts to interfere with the treatment of evolution and climate change in the process of renewing state science standards. Deputy Director Glenn Branch will be ready for anything that happens. Look, too, for him to be bringing you the results of NCSE’s latest teacher survey that updates the groundbreaking Berkman and Plutzer evolution teaching practices survey from 2008 and also asks the surveyed teachers how they teach climate change. We anticipate a lot of useful and intriguing results.

In 2019, we recognized Friends of the Planet and Friends of Darwin, got published or written about in news outlets such as the Washington Post, the Associated Press, and the Los Angeles Times, and redesigned our website to make it easier for the public to understand our work, and why we do it. Please let us know what you think of it!

Finally, let me say thank you for your ongoing interest in NCSE and, of course, to those of you who are members of NCSE, your financial support. I look forward to more great work to come in 2020.

NCSE Executive Director Ann Reid
Short Bio

Ann Reid is a former Executive Director of NCSE.

reid@ncse.ngo