Science Super Star: Debra Hill
We spotlight Debra Hill, CRS Science Super Star honoree, who teaches at Malcolm X Elementary in Berkeley. She is a hands-on science teacher, clearly highlighted through her passion to create a vibrant science culture at her school.
April 14, 2020
We are honored to announce Debra Hill, who is a Science Specialist at Malcolm X Elementary in Berkeley as a 2020 Science Super Star!
Debra teaches over 180 fourth and fifth graders in 7 classrooms.
Keep it hands-on and ask questions. It's okay not to know the answers. That's part of the fun!
She is a hands-on science teacher, clearly highlighted through her passion to create a vibrant science culture at her school. Debra hosts a Polar Bear Club in her classroom every alternate Tuesday. She also promotes sustainable living by helping students sort through their lunchroom trash on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. She recognizes that students are excited about reducing their waste and increasing the school's compost. Despite companies mixing materials, which makes it difficult to figure out how to dispose of the waste, her students are quickly learning about where to sort their trash. Morever, she works with the PTA, admin, and district as part of her school-wide Green Team, to address school waste, climate change, and creative engaging solutions.
Her lessons are just as applicable to the real world. To incorporate language into their lessons, Debra has her classrooms keep a vocabulary section in the back of her journal. She admits she forgets to always remind her students to update it, but has found that many enter the words on their own!
She also includes at least one graphic lesson with each unit, as she feels that all students should be able to make a basic line and bar graph before middle school.
From projects on endangered species and cleaning up oil spills, to studying how gravity affects space shuttles, to a chemistry cooking unit, Debra ensures her students can take something practical away from her lessons (and recognizes how important this is!)
I had one student who last year didn't participate much in science at all. This year, in 5th grade, her class had cooking chemistry. She loved it. She stayed after class and copied the recipies down on a seperate sheet of paper so she could try them at home. It was pretty cool.