Nina Hike

Chicago, IL | 7-12, Science, 2021

What motivates you to contribute to excellence in STEM teaching?

Growing up across the street from the Beaubien Forest Preserve in Chicago’s Altgeld Gardens Housing Project, I spent countless hours observing plants, insects, and the natural world. Sharing what I learned with my mother motivated me and sparked a lifelong passion for science. I’ve worked to cultivate that same sense of wonder, confidence, and intellectual curiosity in my students, helping them see science not just as a subject but as a tool to transform their communities.

What has been the most transformative moment that affirmed your impact on STEM education?

Teaching IB MYP Biology and Chemistry students and their enrollment to my IB Diploma Biology course at Marie Curie High School in Chicago Public Schools, affirmed my impact on STEM education with 50% or more of my students meeting international standards for content and skills in biology and earning college credit from 2011-2018 on the external assessment. During the 2014−2018 school years, students showed their mastery of using the Science Writing Heuristic and Next Generation Science Standards to design, execute, analyze, and communicate scientific information with their experiments on the IB Diploma Biology Internal Assessment. The number of students who passed the internal assessment increased from 55% in 2014 to 72% or higher by 2018.

Using your platform as a Presidential Awardee, how do you hope to advance our nation in STEM?

I aim to advance our nation in STEM by teaching my students cutting-edge science content and skills, with a particular focus on empowering young people to improve their communities and become transformative intellectuals through the development of rich, lab-based curricula that utilize the Science Writing Heuristic and the Next Generation Science Standards, promoting sense-making and offering meaningful professional development workshops for educators in the Chicagoland area and beyond.

Biography

Nina Hike has taught 10th-grade chemistry at George Westinghouse College Prep for the past five years. She previously taught chemistry, environmental science, earth science, International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Program biology and chemistry, Advanced Placement Environmental Science, and IB Diploma Biology at Marie Sklodowska Curie Metropolitan High School for 21 years. Nina spent her first three years teaching biology and environmental science at Orr Academy High School. Nina, a lead contributor to Chemical Education Xchange, specializes in science lessons that utilize youth participatory science, helping students use science to transform their communities. She has published work on the Science Writing Heuristic, which promotes student collaboration, experimental design, modeling, and analysis, and facilitates the processing of scientific knowledge gained through laboratory investigations, including the launch of high-altitude balloons and students advancing to the Illinois State Science Fair. Nina has also developed and taught a chemistry unit centered on Dr. Charles R. Drew’s scientific achievements in blood chemistry, weaving this history together with concepts and techniques such as density and plasma separation, and with real community impact through organizing blood drives. Recently, Nina shared insights on how to utilize chemistry to address local community concerns about environmental pollution during her Observe, Wonder, Think talk with Beyond Benign. Nina earned a B.S. in biology and a minor in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as a Master of Education in Secondary Education from DePaul University. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in curriculum and instruction at UIC. Nina is a certified high school science teacher.

High-resolution version of the teacher profile photograph

The views expressed in awardee profiles are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF or the PAEMST program.