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Robotics
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Presenters:
Sheri Klug
Sheri is a certified teacher with K–12 science teaching experience. Her K–12 school
programs included working with migrant-focused summer science camps, conducting
after-school science clubs for elementary students, and creating and delivering
hands-on science instruction in the classroom as a district science specialist.
Since 1998, Sheri has been the Director of the ASU Mars Education Program. This
program is housed within the Mars Space Flight Facility in the Department of Geological
Sciences at Arizona State University. As director, she facilitates national education
workshops focused on Mars exploration, edits and co-writes inquiry- and standards-based
curriculum that highlight Mars mission objectives, provides Earth/Mars analog field-based
experiences for educators, serves on the national Solar System Girl Scout Leadership
Training Team, and participates on several E/PO committees (Solar System E/PO Committee
and Planetary Data in Education Working Group).
Sheri is the formal education lead for the Mars Public Engagement Team at Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, CA and is the Education and Public Outreach representative
on the Solar System Exploration Subcommittee for NASA Headquarters. As such, she
attends Mars science team meetings and technical science presentations, enabling
her to keep up todate on the latest science discussions and witness first-hand the
process of science and scientific discovery. As an education interface with the
science teams, she works to involve the Mars team in education and to help translate
NASA’s science and engineering objectives to the K–20 education community in meaningful
ways.
Dr. Jennifer L. Rochlis
Jennifer L. Rochlis received her B.A. in Physics from Mount Holyoke College in South
Hadley, MA and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA.
Her research interests include human factors engineering, human-computer interfaces,
Extravehicular activity, and teleoperation and telerobotics. Since 2000 she has
been working with the Robonaut project for the Automation, Robotics and Simulation
division at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.
Dr. Bradley Blue
The year-round GEMS program engages young women with complex problem-solving projects
and provides opportunities to present their work in public. Annually, the girls
build and program robots to compete in a robotics competition. Under Dr. Blue’s
direction, GEMS has been featured on Dragonfly TV and in national and area newspapers
and other publications.
In addition to his work on GEMS, Dr. Blue has worked for various public television
shows including: Newton’s Apple (Kidz on Mars: Season 15, 1997), Zoom TV (Balloons
and Fliers, 1998), and Dragonfly TV (Girl Power and Robotics, 2001). In 2000 Dr.
Blue published the Science of Speed for Pitsco and recently completed, with Julie
Ferriss, work on the Exploration Mars Curriculum.
Dr. Blue completed a Ph.D. at King’s College at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland,
completed his National Board Certification in 1998, and was awarded the Presidential
Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching in 1999.
Julie Ferriss
Julie Ferriss has been an educator for more than 20 years. She graduated from Mississippi
University for Women with a Bachelor’s Degree in music education in 1978 and later
received K–8 teaching certification from Mississippi College. She taught elementary
classroom music in the Crooked Oak School District in Oklahoma City, OK for three
years. She then returned to Mississippi where she taught first, second, and third
grade in the Mississippi Delta from 1984–1999. During that time she not only introduced
creative, innovative instructional strategies to students, families, and colleagues,
but she also provided training and motivation to other teachers in the school district
and the state. In 1996 and 1997 she was named Mississippi’s Teacher of the Year,
and she found a voice in both the educational and political communities across the
state.
In 1999, Julie became the Director of Education at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center/U.S.
SPACE CAMP in Huntsville, Alabama. As Director of Education she led a department
of five, full-time educatorsthat was responsible for curriculum development, training,
and implementation of all SPACE CAMP programs for students ages 9–18 as well as
museum education and professional development programs for teachers. While there,
she also served as liaison to the Education Department at NASA’s Marshall Space
Flight Center. For the past two years Julie has served as an aerospace consultant
to the GEMS (Girls in Engineering Math and Science) after-school/summer program
in the Minneapolis Public School District. She has developed professional development
opportunities for teachers in a variety of areas, and has written robotics curriculum
for PITSCO/LEGO as a classroom solution for integrating programming and engineering
strategies for students in a traditional classroom setting.
Julie is currently teaching in the Osseo Public School District located on the outskirts
of Minneapolis. She is the Lead Teacher at Edgewood Elementary, the new elementary
math, science, and technology magnet school.
For more information contact symposia@nsta.org
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