Presenter+Biographies

8th Grade Science Teacher
 * [[image:http://stem.discoveryeducation.com/images/KristyLathrop.jpg width="99" height="121" align="left"]]Kristy Lathrop**

Mesa Middle School Douglas County School District **Twitter**:@kllathrop **Skype:**kllathrop **email:** lathrop.kristy(at)gmail.com

Kristy Lathrop graduated from Kansas State University with a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education (Science) in 2002. Kristy is an 8th grade Physical scien ce teacher and Department Chair at Mesa Middle School in the Douglas County School District. Prior to her employment in Douglas County, Kristy served as an 8th grade Physical science teacher at Lake County Middle School, a rural school in Leadville, CO. Mrs. Lathrop was recognized as the 2010 secondary education Apple Award winner for Douglas County, is a SMART Exemplary Educator, is a member of the Douglas County Digital Educator Program, is a Siemens STEM Fellow, was one of the finalists at the STEMposium in San Franscisco, and has been awarded grants for classroom technology and outdoor education. She believes that the classroom should transcend physical walls and be rich with opportunities for students to apply their learning to real-life situations, thus developing skills for success in the 21st Century. Kristy asserts that STEM education is the ideal vehicle in which to meet those goals. media type="file" key="STEM Application.mov" align="left" width="300" height="300"

7th/8th Grade Science Teacher
 * [[image:http://stem.discoveryeducation.com/images/RachaelHughes2.jpg align="left"]]Rachael Hughes **

Meadow Community School

Mapleton Public School District

hughesr@mapleton.us

Rachael Hughes earned her Bachelor of Science in Zoology and Masters in Educational Leadership from Colorado State University. While working as a 6th through 8th grade science teacher at Meadow Community School (K-8) within Mapleton Public Schools, she has been involved with the district science initiatives, gifted and talented education, served as a science fair representative, sponsored her school’s yearbook and newspaper club, and Co-sponsor's the district middle school CMESA club. Mrs. Hughes was recognized in the summer of 2010 as a STEM fellow along with 49 other teachers nation-wide. She was also a recipient of the Mapleton Education Foundation classroom grant for designing and building an outdoor habitat classroom and received another grant this year (2010-2011) to connect her classroom with 3 other teachers whom she met from the STEM Fellowship. Using the existing classroom students are tracking the arrival of spring from the tulips they planted and monitoring climate data to create historical records of their information.

While completing her Bachelor of Science in Zoology at CSU, she worked as both a veterinary assistant in the exotic department at the veterinary teaching hospital and as an Honors Intern for CSU's Morgan Library, during which she identified, digitized, and co-created a wildlife database ([]). She then co-published her work, “Managing a Digital Collection: the Garst Photographic Collection,” in //Reference Service Review// in May 2002.