i.am.chabebe

I have been so lucky to have gotten so involved in so many different conversations about women in the STEM fields. I was recently found via twitter thanks to the “rocket scientist” description of myself. The Teach for America Podscast @BlankShowRadio on twitter reached out to me not too long ago to ask me the same question everyone is always interested in….why did I leave my awesome engineering job in the space systems industry to become an under paid and under appreciated teacher?!?!?!

Hear my response to this question and a few more by pressing play on the player below. Since it is a podcast interview there is only sound and no visual. You can also listen by clicking the link directly below.

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Episode 101 – Who Runs the Future of STEM? Girls!

On a completely different note, I have been listening to the following song non-stop. It’s just so catchy and I am killing it with the dance moves. I have a burning desire to do this same dance in a grocery store just like her.

Sara Bareilles – Gonna Get over You

http://youtu.be/OUe3oVlxLSA

Teaching science at the high school level has given me a whole new perspective on the importance of marketing the importance of science literacy and education to students. Besides teaching physics content, I try to share as many interesting science related topics in our current events. I think what science needs is a better marketing campaign. Too many young people think that math and science are too hard to pursue as a career. I continually try to do my best to reverse this idea within my classroom.

I am completely obsessed with quantum physics. The complexity and beauty of special relativity, superstring theory and quantum physics fascinate me and continually blow my mind. Here is Columbia theoretical physicists Brian Greene promoting the awesomeness of science on the Colbert Report!!

The following video is Mayim Bialik who plays Amy Farrah Fowler on the Big Bang Theory talking about the importance and beauty of science. My favorite part of this video is at the 3:40 mark where she talks about a science career versus an acting career. Here exact words are:

“I had professors when I was an undergraduate that said, ‘why are you here if you could have the world of acting, why wouldn’t you take it?’ Being a scientist is a exciting, creating and interesting as being an artist.”

This quote immediately reminded me of when my students ask me “Ms. Chabebe why are you here teaching instead of  working at NASA?” My answer is always the same, I love teaching and I feel that it is the best career for me to use my passion and love for math and science. Teaching has been as creative and interesting of a career as it was to design spaceship parts!

I have been so fortunate to take part in the recent Teach for America S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) initiatives by sharing my story about having an engineering background and becoming a teacher.

Check out more about this initiative and my take on it (by scrolling all the way down!) here http://www.teachforamerica.org/iteachstem

Also, I had the opportunity to share a little bit about why I think mentoring is important. Read more here or check out my video!

• For STEM news and updates, follow@TFA_STEM on Twitter.
• To see what’s going on in our STEM classrooms, follow @TFA_STEM and #IteachSTEM on Instagram.

I am on a mission to improve the lab supplies situation at my school. The small demonstrations and labs I have been able to scrounge together using the little functioning supplies we have, or supplies I have purchased myself, have made such a difference in my students understanding of what we learn in class. So, I have created a project on Donors Choose in hopes to start improving the lab supplies situation little by little. Please check out my page and pass along to anyone who might be interested in helping!!! Thanks

Make Physics Come Alive Right Before Your Eyes!!!

Give to my classroom by February 9, 2014 and your donation will be doubled thanks to DonorsChoose.org. Just enter the code INSPIRE on the payment page and you’ll be matched dollar for dollar (up to $100).

If you chip in to help my students, you’ll get awesome photos and our heartfelt thanks.

I was fortunate enough to attend the SHPE (Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers) Conference in Indianapolis last week representing Teach for America. My goal was to stress the lack of talented women, and mainly Hispanic women, that I have encountered in my education and career as an engineer and now as a teacher.

In addition to the conference, an article was published in the Huffington Post about my story and my reasons to switch from an engineering career to a teaching career.

Read the entire article by clicking the image below:

I recently realized that there hasn’t been a year of my life since age 4 that I have not been in school. I know that this is typical for medical and PhD students, but I thought I would be done with formal schooling a long time ago. It’s been just over five years since graduating college and I am currently pursuing my second masters degree.

Although I already have a masters in engineering, that was not enough for the state of NY to allow me to pursue a teaching certification. Apparently I need to take education courses in order to be fully certified. Well, I just finished up my first full year of this education degree and so far I have maintained a 4.0. This semester I took Educational Psychology and the History of Education. Having to take classes that deal with understanding people, after taking all math and engineering coursework in college is quite a shift for me. This report card is one for the fridge!

Also, I must admit that I was quite proud of my final project for my class about the history of education and the different theorists. We had to come up with  a visual metaphor to trace the roots/foundations of American schooling. The visual representation had to include at least four of the theorists we learned about and at least two significant tensions, questions and controversies in American education. This is what I came up with:

And yes, that’s me, the mad scientists. Looking back, I should have put a meter stick in his hands instead of a spatula. I am not very artistic but I am proud of myself for this I might even hang it up in my room. Just one year left of this degree, hopefully I can maintain the 4.0

I am happy to announce that I have practically survived my first year as a teacher. My students did better than expected on the physics regents exam and I am so proud of them for working so hard, they really made this an incredible first year for me! Aside from teaching, I have been taking graduate classes towards an education masters as well. I will hopefully be done with this degree by this time next year. However, I am enjoying the classes I am taking and had an awesome final project for my first summer session class that just ended.

My professor wanted us to create something that would be useful for us in our next year of teaching. After much debate and some  exceptionally boring ideas, he challenged me to build a bottle rocket launcher. So a week later and several trips to home depot, I present to you a very short compilation of what I have created

The best part of this first video is when I run in front of the camera post launch screaming “I lost my shoe!!!”

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This next one is a failed launch with my Assisstant Principal almost getting hit in the face with the launcher. Remember kids, safety first!

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Final launch where some students got interested in helping out!

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Thanks to the cameraman Ms. Monahan for some awesome commentary!

Here is a picture of the assembled rocket launcher

It’s been quite a busy time now that it is almost time for the regents state exams. I managed to finish the curriculum which finished with modern physics. Although I find the topic of quantum physics incredibly interesting, I found myself having a lot of trouble explaining the role of photons, hadrons and leptons in the subatomic world. It’s so difficult to teach a world that doesn’t function the way we are used to when it comes to interacting with the things around us on a daily basis. My fix to this was to pick up some books on quantum physics and read up!

Though it may look like there are two of the same books for a Brief History of Time, one of them is actually A Briefer History of Time. My favorite so far is Quantum – A Guide for the Perplexed by Jim Al-Khalili.

On a more interesting note, my students have been staying late after school since it’s crunch time before the regents! At the end of the day they are usually just completely drained so I let them just hang out and draw on the white board and smart board. Today’s artwork was a picture of me, in my classroom.

It’s funny to see how my students view me. My favorite part about the whole drawing is how I am saying “Use your reference tables” For those who are unfamiliar with the NYC regents, students get a 6 page reference table with all the equations they need for physics.   I guess I refer them back to it quite a lot. I would have made it an all caps rage though, since I am usually screaming it out at the top of my lungs!

There are only….
33 days left to the end of the school year
21 days until all my students take their regents exams
15 teaching days

First year as a teacher is almost complete. Then….SUMMER VACATION!!!!

It’s been quite a while since my last post – being a teacher has consumed every free moment I might have. But I can’t complain, I am really loving it.

Spring break was a few weeks ago and before leaving for spring break I assigned a hefty amount of HW to my students. I told them the reason I give them so much work is because I want them truly practice and understand physics. I finished the argument by telling them that the amount of HW I assigned to them was directly proportional to how much I loved them! After class, I notice the following on my white board:

I guess my students disagree with my HW vs. logic, but I was ecstatic to see that they used correct mathematical language to express themselves! Teacher win!!!

This past week I started teaching the Unit on Waves in my physics class. We started with the basics of wave characteristics talking about thunder and lightning and explaining why even though its the same event, we hear and see these at different times (speed of light wave > speed of sound wave). Then we talked about the different types and parts of wave. Finally at the end of the week we derived the wave speed equation from the original equation of speed we had learned in the mechanics unit, v= d/t.

This week I am starting off with one of my favorite demonstrations, the Ruben’s Tube. Unfortunately I did not have time to build my own Ruben’s Tube but there are a bunch of cool videos all over the internet which show was this device does. I will definitely spend time this summer building my own Ruben’s Tube for next year.

The most basic description of what a Ruben’s Tube does is that it allows you to visualize sound. Sound travels in waves, compression waves specifically so this is a perfect demonstration for the waves unit.

Here is a very basic video of a functioning Ruben’s Tube with a wonderful explanation:

And here is a video combining two things I love – physics and dubstep

Because blogging about my students work is more fun than planning, here is a post dedicated to my students’ awesome work

I am currently taking a class about teaching culturally diverse and English language learning students. In the class our professor had us create tri-fold books to summarize a paper we read for HW. I decided to take this idea and have my students make a tri-fold in my physics class. The task was this…

Pick a topic about physics
Pick three equations in that topic
Make a table listing the names of the variables in the equation and their related units
Come up with your own problem which would be solved using the equation (1 problem for each equation)
Solve said problem showing all work, including substitution with units

Well, needless to say I had a blast reading the problems my students came up with. Granted some of them just used problems from the old HW assignments but some got incredibly creative. This is my favorite. I must have laughed for 10 minutes straight after reading this….

Skrillex drop the (pet) bass

So many awesome things about this one. The empire state is just about 433 meters tall, the artwork is incredible and well the humor is just amazing. I need to assign more creative projects to these kids.

Here are a few more projects I enjoyed very much

Awesome artwork and incredibly thoughtful problems

And I happen to make a few appearances in some of the work….

Hmmm, losing glasses and getting hit by apples?!?!

Everyone knows I love my heels

My kids know me so well!! Of course we had a dance off haha

The fun never ends while being a teacher!