Kimberly Menard

Lakeville, MN | K-6, Science, 2022

What motivates you to contribute to excellence in STEM teaching?

It happens in most every STEM class. We wrestle with tough challenges. Students fail, look at data, talk to the team, try again and fail again. They go back, trouble shoot, hear a new idea, try again, and while they may be closer, fail again. Just when they wonder if it can be done, it works, and they CHEER! They stand and CHEER! And if they are on a team, they celebrate each other. I want my students, all my students, to know they can wrestle and succeed, but they will need each other to do it.

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

My principal found me weeping at my desk one day after school. I had just played a podcast created by a former student, tracing her own world-impacting journey back to time with me in our GT and STEM programs. In the busiest year of my life, I squeezed in time to meet before school with some passionate fifth graders to take our classroom learning in debate, perspective study, and solar engineering to research if a rooftop solar array was right for our school. Months of work took us to the school board, and after a long wait, we stood up on our school rooftop seeing our dream a reality and spreading to other schools in the district. Hearing how that changed her life left me humbled and honored. I DID make a difference, with ripple effects!

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

I honestly believe "If I can do it, you can too!" I love being able to take the best lessons and techniques shared with me and pass them on in a way that builds confidence and excitement in teachers and students. My other passion is the environment. I wrote a children's book that captures my vision. My dream is to do the work to get it published and use that and PAEMST opportunities to motivate each of us to do what we can to make the world better, one action, one lesson at a time.

Biography

Before becoming a STEM Specialist for Lakeville Area Schools, Kimberly "Kim" Menard taught GT (Gifted Education) and grades K, 4, and 5 and in Farmington, MN. Kim joined Lake Marion Elementary in Lakeville first as GT Specialist alone, then 6 years as GT and STEM Specialist, then becoming full time STEM specialist alone in 2020. As STEM Specialist, Kim currently sees more than 700 kindergarten through fifth graders each week for lessons in coding, robotics, standards-based science units, and engineering challenges. She also supports classroom teachers with special projects and standard implementation. Kim's passion for the environment moved her to create and lead a "Green Team" that would create outdoor learning spaces and inspire teachers to take learning outdoors. Due to a strong interest in her GT students, she formed a before-school solar club for the fifth graders to investigate rooftop solar arrays as a school possibility and present their findings to the school board. Eventually, those former students toured the new array that now provides 98% of the school's electricity. She had a chance to visit several Minnesota cities with Climate Generation to equip teachers to teach and explore solar energy themselves. More recently, Kim has worked to reduce plastic waste by teaching first grade teachers how to turn T-shirts into reusable shopping bags as a student project and by organizing a recycling partnership with NexTrex. Students collected their first 1,000 pounds of plastic bags and wraps by Earth Day and earned a bench made of recycled plastic for the school. Kim earned her B.A. in elementary education from Bethel University, her M.Ed. from Saint Mary's University of Minnesota, and her STEM certificate from the University of St. Thomas.

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.