ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 9, 1995 TAG: 9512110048
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
How does a teacher top a state fellowship, seven grants and scholarships and two published instructional books?
She heads to the White House.
That's where fifth grade teacher Catherine Ney will visit this spring to receive the Presidential Award for Excellence in Elementary Science Teaching. She'll spend a week touring Washington D.C., visiting with congressmen and meeting President Clinton. Plus, a $7,500 award will go to her school, Christiansburg Elementary.
A 17-year teaching veteran who's instructed children from kindergarten to the eighth grade, Ney just started teaching fifth grade at Christiansburg. Prior to this year, she spent eight years as a second grade teacher at Margaret Beeks Elementary School.
Ney's not the only teacher from the area to receive the honor, which is separated into four categories: elementary science, elementary math, secondary science and secondary math.
Auburn High and Middle School science teacher Charles Jervis received the award for excellence in secondary science teaching two years ago. Frank Taylor, who teaches science and chemistry at Radford High School, won that award in 1991.
Ney said she's applied for this award three times before. This time, she had a year's worth of curriculum development and classroom work to catch the eye of judges.
In 1994, Ney received the Christa McAuliffe Fellowship, which honors the Concord, N.H., teacher who died in the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. The $32,500 stipend allowed her to work on new curriculum and test it with different grades.
The curriculum, which will be published as two teacher resource books next spring, integrates math, science and technology with literature.
"If we taught [science] out of a textbook students wouldn't really get it," she said. "I start with literature because that's what's familiar, then pull out science and math from that and give them hands-on experiences that they'll remember."
"Challenging" and "cool" - words you wouldn't expect to hear from fifth-graders about science work - ring out over the din of chatter in Ney's classroom.
Almost as energetic as the petite ball of fire who teaches them, the pupils love to experiment with their mealworms.
"Mine went through the entire maze - twice," exclaimed Ashley Hall, pointing to a shoebox stuffed with pastel index cards glued to form a labyrinth of tunnels and turns.
Mealworms and the award-winning children's book, "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh," have a great deal in common, according to student Cindy Bolling.
"See, in the book, there are these three groups of rats. And the scientists test the groups, like we're doing."
Ney said connecting books with science and math develops enthusiastic students with critical thinking skills.
By using this teaching approach, she wrote in her application, "students and teachers learn to make science connections into other disciplines ... to gain a better understanding of how science works and is applied in our world."
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Eric Brady. Presidential science award winner Catherineby CNBNey works with her fifth-grade class at Christiansburg Elementary
School. Ney will visit Washington in the spring to meet President
Clinton, to accept the award and to tour the city. Her school gets a
$7,500 grant, too. color.