Sam Crickenberger

I am a STEM educator with over 10 years of experience teaching science and working as a research scientist. My journey into science and science education began in the USA with a Bachelor’s of Science in Marine Biology from the College of Charleston, followed by a PhD in Biological Sciences from Clemson University. After completing my PhD I worked as a research scientist at the University of South Carolina and The University of Hong Kong. As a researcher, I worked on a wide variety of projects with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, National Estuarine Research Reserves, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, NASA and a number of universities worldwide.

Throughout my research years I taught a number university labs and courses, volunteered at K-12 schools, and mentored undergraduate and graduate students in research. While research is a love of mine, these experiences as an educator were some of my favorite. After finishing up my position at HKU, I decided to teach high school science and math full time at The Harbour School, an American international school here in Hong Kong. My research experiences taught me that experiential learning is the best way to help people truly understand science, which is my goal for my students. I am the director of the Independent Study Module (ISM) program where I help students develop yearlong research projects that are presented at a symposium at the end of the year. I work to incorporate hands-on, minds-on science and productive struggle into as much of my teaching as possible. I have both independently and collaboratively developed a number of multi-disciplinary courses to guide students to make their own connections across subjects.

I am keen to continue to expand the ways I can leverage my understanding of how science works and my passion for teaching to educate others about new ways to see and understand the world. Currently, I am participating in a three year study with Catalyst Education Lab and Harvard University’s Project Zero to research innovative practices in education in local and international schools to help me on this journey, and I look forward to future opportunities to continue to learn.