Kate Baker Named Finalist for Presidential Award

Kate Baker, a middle school science teacher at Country Day School, is a finalist for the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST). This award is the nation's highest honor for teachers of math and science. Nominees are recognized for their exemplary contributions in the classroom and to their profession. The awards were established by an Act of Congress in 1983 to recognize the outstanding work and dedication of a very select group of teachers throughout the United States and its territories. In addition to honoring individual achievement, the goal of the awards is to expand and exemplify the definition of excellent science and mathematics teaching.

This is the second time Kate Baker has been nominated for this award. Headmaster Jim Sadler wrote of Kate, "To say that she is a teacher in good standing is a colossal understatement. In truth, she is one of our finest and most innovative teachers, combining cutting edge technological integration with old fashioned, hands-on scientific research." Because of Ms. Baker's vision and initiative, her Middle School classroom at Country Day houses the only working seismometer on St. Croix and has been designated the official reporting station for the Virgin Islands. A student in the 8th grade says, "She is very orderly, so we have a good routine and we have learned to develop good study habits. She has very high expectations, but she really helps us meet those expectations. She handles problems really well and, she likes to figure out why someone didn't do well on a test or quiz and then she tries to solve it." An eighth grade student describes Ms. Baker as, "A lively teacher with creative ideas that make learning science fun."

The project that Kate submitted to PAEMST was an inquiry activity into the characteristics and boundaries of the Caribbean Plate. Students were provided with maps of volcanoes, earthquakes, sea-floor age and geography to identify and characterize plate boundaries of the Caribbean Sea. Using the provided information, 7th and 8th grade students accurately located the boundaries of the Plate and determined the nature of those boundaries correctly.