Winning the Presidential Award would be an honor and a challenge. An honor to be among so many distinguished educators and a challenge every day to be worthy of the honor. This award recognizes my creativity in lesson development on behalf of my students and validates that my work is important and substantive.

Katherine Baker Kingshill, VI | 7-12, Science, 2011

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

Katherine (Kate) Baker has spent 25 years teaching science in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the last 14 of which have been at St. Croix Country Day School. While Kate is primarily a middle school teacher, she teaches Statistics in the upper school and a variety of electives, from paper engineering to snorkeling. She has also taught at St. Joseph High School in Frederiksted and taught mathematics at Oliver Wendell Holmes Middle School in the South Glens Falls, NY, School District. Kate’s love affair with technology has resulted in her piloting the use of SMART Boards and iPads. She is delighted to find new ways to use them and looks forward to creating her own textbook. She believes that a focus on teaching the processes of science using local phenomena leads to better understanding. She incorporates data analysis into her activities. Most recently, Kate's students have used online genetic tools to investigate Caribbean anole relationships. She works collaboratively with her middle school colleagues on continuing school improvement initiatives, including standards-based instruction, assessment, and report cards. Kate has coached seven National MathCounts and two National Science Bowl teams. Kate has a B.A. in mathematics from Castleton State College and an M.S. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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