Science Math Teaching Center
College of Education
Ana Houseal
ProfessorOutreach Science Educator
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
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
