I am extremely honored to receive the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching and the associated affirmation by fellow science educators of my efforts to strive for excellence in science teaching. Receiving this award has further fueled my passion to establish an innovative online collaboration with other educators to create better assessment and instructional activities which insure all students have the opportunity to succeed in science and engineering.

Bruce Wellman Lawrence, KS | 7-12, Science, 2009

The official biography below was current at the time of the award.

Bruce Wellman has worked as a teacher in a wide range of educational settings over the past 17 years. He began his teaching career in rural Delaware, taught in urban Los Angeles County, CA, taught overseas in a public high school in French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa, and most recently has taught in a suburban school district outside of Kansas City, KS, at Lawrence High School. During his career, Bruce has taught English (while in Africa), high school chemistry, and Advanced Placement Chemistry. Last year, he started teaching chemistry and aerospace and engineering chemistry as part of the Aerospace & Engineering 21st Century Program at Olathe Northwest High School in Olathe, KS. Since 2005, Bruce has been involved with the growing national community of educators using a Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) framework for designing science instruction. He currently serves as the Lead Facilitator of the Northern Colorado POGIL Collaboration of Chemistry Teachers and is a writing partner with the National High School POGIL Initiative. Bruce has a B.S. in General Science from Pennsylvania State University and an M.S. in Education from the University of Rochester. He is National Board Certified in adolescence and young adulthood science-chemistry.

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