Press
New Orleans Teacher Free-Store adjusts in pandemic to continue to provide for teachers in need
It is a place that gives teachers critical supplies that they would maybe have to purchase themselves. Each year teachers spend hundreds of dollars of their own money providing items for their classrooms. During the coronavirus pandemic, STEM Library Lab had to adapt...
Teaching Teachers to Fish
I am no longer surprised when an elementary teacher tells me that their school has decided to use science block for community building. Nor am I surprised when a high school teacher announces they want their students to finally do an experiment this quarter. And I am...
My Big Project- Science Biographies Collection
Today, a plan 7 years in the making comes to fruition. In 2013, I read a statistic that said the majority of students graduate high school having never completed a nonfiction text. When I searched this morning it on google, I came up dry but did find these scary stats...
Inquiry in the Age of Coronavirus
Many of the teachers we work with voice that they are struggling to make science hands-on and inquiry-based while remote or hybrid teaching. Absenteeism, the physical challenges of recording hybrid lessons, curriculums designed to be delivered over Zoom, and a slew of...
the Win-Win-Win-Win-Win
A confession: I am one of those people who excessively repeats things I hear on NPR. Last year, Mark Lloyd’s efforts to provide portable toilets to homeless Seattleites included the quote “If you have moral clarity, you aren't in deep enough.” Which I love. Or...
The Problem of “One More Thing”
“This sounds great, but it's one more thing, and I just don’t have time for that.” In the past three years building STEM Library Lab, this one sentence has continually flummoxed me. Today I want to dive into the problem of “One More Thing.” As a teacher, this was me....
Resourcing the Under-resourced
The problem, resourcing the under-resourced, is deceptively challenging. We sent invitations for appointments to the Teacher Free-Store to over 2,000 local educators in the last 2 weeks. Of the respondents, 92% have been from schools with an “A” grade on their SPS score. “A” schools make up less than 10% of all Orleans Parish public schools. Do the teachers at C, D, and F schools just not need free supplies? We know empirically this is not the case, so are forced to ask, what makes those teachers less likely to take advantage of a resource?
Lending Library in Gentilly puts Science Equipment in Teachers’ Hands
The New Orleans Advocate, 08/09/2019, by Celeste Turner, photo by Chris Granger - Much the same way that a card-carrying member can walk into a public library and come out with a book, teachers can walk into the STEM Library Lab in Gentilly and borrow everything from...
STEM Library Lab-Young Bloods
St. Charles Magazine, 01/31/2020, by Lindsay Mack, Photos by Cheryl Gerber While working as a science teacher in New Orleans, Todd Wackerman faced a common dilemma: lab materials are often outside the school’s budget. To help other educators facing a similar issue,...
Stocking the Shelves
Biz New Orleans, 03/01/2019, by Ashley McLellan - Careers in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math) have been lauded for years as the path to the best jobs with the best pay, but when New Orleans math and science teacher Todd Wackerman tried to...
Tulane Business Model Competition names semifinalists for $25,000 top prize
Tulane University’s A. B. Freeman School of Business has named the six student teams that will face off in the qualifying round of the 2018 Tulane Business Model Competition…
Learning to Pilot, Building a Real STEM Lending Library
If you’re wondering what happened, we changed our name. The Science Teachers’ Equipment Lending Library, while descriptive, was a bit verbose, and also factually inaccurate as we will service all STEM educators. We are now STEM Library Lab!
Data Driven Road Tripping to STEM Education Centers
On August 12th I set out on a 3,000 mile journey across the middle of the U.S. The purpose was to visit and learn about operations, logistics, marketing, outreach, and reporting, across a variety of K-12 STEM libraries across the country.
Networking with the STEM Education Centers
I originally discovered the NSEC while completing an assignment for the Changemaker Institute, which directed me to seek out organizations nationally doing similar work to STELL. I found, among others, SwI STEM in Indiana, who advised me to attend. And I am thankful that I listened.
Generating Interest Among Stakeholders in K-12 Education
When we left off, STEM Library Lab was preparing to write a Memorandum of Understanding, a nonbinding document to help validate customers and demonstrate that interest exists for our service offerings.