Lodi High teacher driven by STEAM
Science teacher named Lodi Unified’s Teacher of the Year
Lodi High School science teacher Melissa Turner watched as some of her students, both current and former, who are members of the Lodi Storm Drain Detectives, tested water samples from Lodi Lake on Tuesday afternoon.
Turner cites her involvement with the group as one of the reasons she was chosen as Lodi Unified School District’s 2018-19 Teacher of the Year during a board of education meeting on May 1.
“I feel honored, it’s a very humbling experience. It’s made me look at everything I’ve done in our school and for our school, and how much I’ve accomplished,” Turner said.
Turner has worked with the Storm Drain Detectives for 14 years, a group started 19 years ago by Kathy Grant, Lodi’s watershed program coordinator. Turner even manages to connect the group’s activities to lessons in her ninth-grade pre-AP biology class, she said.
Grant praised Turner for her involvement in the program, saying that Turner’s students have been compiling data collected twice a month by students throughout the school year, and will present their findings to the public at Hutchins Street Square on May 17.
“Her students are the powerhouse of the program because they come in as freshmen or sophomores in her honors biology class, so they train with us for years. They’re also the ones who do the public presentation next week,” Grant said. “In her class, they study all the data from all the schools in the program. No other teacher does that with their students. She’s very rigorous, she treats them like college students or graduate students.”
Turner has also brought more STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) classes such as forensics, robotics, 3D printing, and rocketry to Lodi High, she said, and plans to add even more programs next year.
“We’re going to start a student-driven mentor program where we bring in elementary-school students and our high-schoolers teach them lessons in STEAM,” Turner said.
Jud Atwater, who teaches AP environmental science at Lodi High, said that Turner’s innovative approach to teaching STEAM — such as handson activities in class and working with art students who will paint a mural in the science room — and dedication to her students were two of the biggest reasons he felt she deserved the award.
“She works with students with all levels of experience in science. She puts in lots of time working with kids before and after school, on weekends. She just spends a lot of time making science enjoyable. All her kids love being in her class,” Atwater said.
Todd DeGrandmont, a chemistry and physics teacher at Lodi High, also commended Turner’s continued dedication to providing her students with the best education possible, both in science and other subjects.
“Melissa is a teacher who wants her students to see the connection of the various disciplines of science — biology, chemistry, Earth, physics — to all aspects of their education. She has spent many common planning days working toward aligning science curriculum to ensure continuity for her students,” DeGrandmont said.