STEM Leadership Award Winner: Daniel Christman

H/STEM Leadership Award Winner: Daniel Christman

On a daily basis, Mr. Christman engages students in hands-on learning experiences where they are required to collaborate, think critically, communicate, and create. He encourages all learners to be the best they can and work with the materials and knowledge that they have no matter what level that is.

Mr. Christman is always working to craft lessons that are engaging, new, and exciting. He guides students with their science fair projects, helping them develop a plan, theory, and experiments that will test certain hypotheses. He is also working on an event called “Inventor’s Alley”, where he is collaborating with students, teachers, and local businesses to create a day long, interactive event that showcases science inventions by students and demonstrations by other adults. This event will expose students to new ideas that will trigger questions for further exploration of STEM topics.

Mr. Christman is constantly using real life examples and providing explanations for the infamous student question, “When will we use this in real life?” He is able to relate all of his content to practical uses in careers, higher education, and even in daily life. In addition, his classroom is not just about science—Mr. Christman is able to teach using many cross-curricular activities and lessons. He has students explore mathematical concepts such as graphing, axis labeling, and rate of change, and incorporates Language Arts content by having students write explanations about their experiments and present their theories to the class. Through his love of science, Mr. Christman connects with his students and helps them understand how it applies to their lives.