Ms. Charlene Ellingson
Ms. Charlene Ellingson (dog Sigrun)
STEAM Teacher (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics)

“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” (Albert Einstein)

Who am I. My name is Charlene Ellingson, and I will be teaching the STEAM class (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics). I am thrilled to be teaching at Jenny Lind, and looking forward to a fun year! In my free time I like to read, write, walk with my dogs, cook, and spend time at my cabin. 

This is my first year at Jenny Lind, but I have been in the district for 16 years. I taught 9th grade for 13 years, after that I went back to earn my Ph.D. in STEM Education (I will graduate this school year), and for the last three years I have been writing elementary STEM curriculum and doing STEM training for teachers.

What we will do. In this course, you will be working in collaborative teams to improve your thinking and learning in multiple subjects -- science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics. The goal of the class is for you to develop your STEAM literacy through making prototypes that are possible solutions to real world problems and communicating them to others. For example, redesigning a toy to make it better or making furniture that can hold a person using only cardboard. The goal is for you to become more adept at personal and academic expression through making prototypes to solve problems (engineering), then writing (and speaking) about them. 

“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.” (Isaac Asimov)

What you can expect. Because it is a foundational skill to communicate in writing, you can expect to have a lot of opportunities to write about the prototypes you design. Writing is not something we are born understanding how to do, it is developed over time through writing, sharing our writing, and revising our writing, This does not mean all of our writing will be long essays. You can expect many short, creative, and fun writing tasks that tap into your creativity. For example, I may ask you to think back to a time you made something, building it from things you found around the house, and to spend five minutes writing about it. Other things you can expect about writing is to learn to give and receive feedback to revise and improve your writing, to use Thinking Maps to help you organize your thinking (more about this later), and to use Science and Engineering Notebooks to keep your work organized and available.
 
Finally, you can expect to have fun learning new things, learning to work in teams, and to use your creativity and imagination. 

How to reach me. You can reach me through e-mail at charlene.ellingson@mpls.k12.mn.us or by cell phone at 612-408-7241.