Science Math Teaching Center

College of Education

Dr. Ana Houseal Headshot

Ana Houseal

Interim Director of Science & Mathematics Teaching Center

Professor

Outreach Science Educator

ahouseal@uwyo.edu

307 766-6735

253 Hill Hall

Education

B.A. from University of Iowa
M.A. from University of Northern Iowa 1998
Ph.D. from University of Illinois

Teaching

Science Education across the State of WyomingScience Education Assessment and PedagogyK-12 Science Education Standards and Curriculum DevelopmentResearch Methodology
NGSS Professional Development Tools
Houseal 3D Learning Model
Houseal Simplified 3D Learning Model
Houseal Blank 3D Learning Model
Research Interests
  • Student-teacher-scientist and citizen science partnerships
  • National Park Service - interpretation, education, and evaluation
  • Current standards reform efforts - Specifically the Framework for K-12 Education and Next Generation Science Standards
  • Science curriculum development (with in-service teachers)

Bio

Dr. Ana Houseal is the Outreach Science Educator at the Science and Mathematics Teaching Center at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.  She began her teaching career over two and a half decades ago in a special education classroom on the Lakota Sioux (Rosebud) Reservation in South Dakota.  She also taught in an east coast inner city intermediate school and in communities in Montana, Georgia, and Iowa.  She has been teaching pre- and in-service teachers in her classroom and in university courses since 1996. In 2005, she obtained National Board Certification in Young Adolescent Science.
Ana’s doctoral work focused on quantifying the effects of a scientist-student-teacher partnership that she developed pairing upper-elementary aged students and their teachers from the Greater Yellowstone Area with geoscientists from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying the Mammoth Hot Springs system. This partnership was embedded within Expedition: Yellowstone!, a long-standing, residential park service program in Yellowstone National Park. The partnership enhanced students’ scientific inquiry experiences in an authentic setting. Ana also spearheaded an evaluation of Expedition: Yellowstone! in 2006.
She is continuing to explore and research the development of new partnerships in Wyoming at UW, in Illinois at UIUC and in Yellowstone and in other national parks using a similar model. Curriculum developed for the STaRRS project can be found at http://repository.uwyo.edu/starrs_curriculum/
Other research projects include:
  • The development of energy literacy curriculum and accompanying professional development models – in partnership with the Illinois State Geological Survey
  • Investigations and assistance with work Wyoming school districts are undertaking at the nexus of the unintended consequences for science in elementary classrooms from the No Child Left Behind legislation and the advent of the Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards
  • Various National Park Service projects focusing on education in the Parks
    Research methodology for in-service teachers