Tina King
National Science Foundation
EHR / HRD – Research on Gender in Science and Engineering Program
Tennessee – Grade 8, Integrated Science
Tina King graduated from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, with teaching endorsements in K-9, as well as a M.S. in Administration and Supervision. Tina has taught for the Wilson County School District for the past 30 years, which supports and encourages innovative teaching. She has taught every grade K-6, and currently teaches 8th grade science at West Wilson Middle School in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee.
In 1998, her world as she knew it changed forever when she dug up a dinosaur on a 55-day trip out west. It changed her teaching, as well as the course of her life by giving her a passion for science and learning. She received the Presidential Award of Excellence for Mathematics and Science Teaching in 1999. She was selected to participate on the National Science Foundation’s Teachers Experiencing Antarctica and the Arctic Program and left her classroom in 2001 for a two- month field experience on the continental coastline of Antarctica with Dr. Sam Bowser’s research team to study microorganisms (foraminifera-climate change detectors sensitive to the environment) beneath the Antarctic ice. This joint collaboration involved classroom visits, emails, projects, phone calls, and journal entries with images from the field, as well as presentations at science conferences and the development of online activities.
Tina received the National Association of Geo Science Teachers K-12 Outstanding Earth Science Teacher Award for the Southeastern Region in 2004. She is a member and past president of the Tennessee Earth Science Teachers Association, and a member and state representative of the National Earth Science Teachers Association. She is also a member of the Tennessee Educators of Aquatic and Marine Science and the National Marine Educators Association. She has been involved with two rock clubs in Nashville, Tennessee: The Mid-Tennessee Gem and Mineral Society and the Middle Tennessee Rockhounds, which helped support the annual geo dig developed for students at West Elementary for the past 13 years. She has gone into the field with scientists to help teachers transfer field experience into the classroom during teacher workshops in the Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming, since 2006.
Tina participated in the Consortium for Ocean Leadership’s 2007 ‘School of Rock’, which is an immersive research experience working with scientists to examine deep-sea sediment cores collected from science expeditions from the deep sea drilling vessel, the JOIDES Resolution. She returned in 2008 to work with Deep Earth Academy as a teacher assistant to help teachers with curriculum development. She developed an on-line activity with Dr. Mark Leckie using his authentic data from one of his expeditions (Leg 130), which has since been shared online and at state and national conferences. Tina has developed classroom activities and shared them at state, regional, and national science and/ or math conferences each year since 2001. She feels that her students benefit the most when they work together to do labs and investigations, as well as work with scientists to connect science in the classroom to real world science and data. She has made presentations at the Alaska Math and Science Conference, and as far away as Barrow, Alaska and Brisbane, Australia.
Tina will be working as a fellow with the National Science Foundation’s Division of Human Resource Development (HRD): Research on Gender in Science and Engineering program. She has an interest and passion for reaching K-12 students, and she looks forward to working to help broaden and increase participation in STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) by helping diffuse research and innovative learning to address gender-related differences and career paths for a more diverse domestic science and engineering workforce.