The Presidential Award signifies that I am striving to teach my students at the highest level. Students of our nation deserve to be taught by teachers that create meaningful content that challenges them to become competent citizen-scientists. All students deserve this no matter where they are in the nation, who teaches them, or what school they attend. Receiving this award with all the other deserving nominees reassures me that students are receiving a great education in our nation.

Brian Hare Woodbury, MN | K-6, Science, 2020

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

Brian Hare has taught sixth grade physical science at E-STEM Middle School for the past two years. He spent the previous six years of his eight-year teaching tenure teaching sixth grade physical science, eighth grade earth science, and Makerspace at Capitol Hill Magnet School. Brian creates curriculum that is inquiry-based and allows students to experience science at their own level. He continually incorporates real-world experiences that bring students closer to how science "is done" in the field. Brian balances having fun in the classroom with challenging students to push themselves further to become physical science content experts. Brian has received multiple grants to help students use engineering to advance their study of science content. While at Capitol Hill, he wrote, received, and implemented grant-based curriculum where students built catapults to study simple machines and Newtonian physics. At E-STEM, Brian wrote and received a grant to have students build a Rube Goldberg device with reusable materials in order to study Newtonian physics. Brian has served as a mentor teacher leading professional development for science teachers at individual, group, and district levels. He is a certified professional development leader of Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis that was developed by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study. As the Site Leader for the Saint Paul Public Schools STEM Camp, Brian developed 11 engineering design activities and three STEM rotations that enable teachers to deliver STEM curriculum at the camp. Brian earned a B.S. in engineering from the United States Military Academy and an M.Ed. from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. He is certified as a sixth through eighth grade science teacher and as a 9-12 chemistry teacher.

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