Brenda Carpenter
Brenda Carpenter
Fellowship Placement: National Science Foundation
Hometown: Alexandria, VA
Brenda Carpenter comes to her fellowship from Mark Twain Middle School in Alexandria, Virginia, where she taught 8th grade science. Brenda is serving her Fellowship in the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR), Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL).
Brenda has been a formal STEM educator for 14 years having taught in various settings including 5th grade math and science, 8th grade physical and earth science, physics, earth and space science, and dual credit geology. Brenda also has extensive informal science experience having served for 16 years as program manager for grant funded Saturday Science, a weekend science workshop series for elementary through middle school students and parents held at Susquehanna University. Through this program, Brenda mentored preservice educators as they practiced inquiry-based science teaching methods by preparing activities for Saturday Science.
Brenda holds a Bachelor of Science in elementary education from Susquehanna University, a Master of Science in geoscience from Mississippi State University, and is a doctoral candidate in STEM education at Texas Tech University. She holds National Board Certification in Science/Early Adolescence in addition to being certified to teach in Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia.
In addition to presenting at conferences for the National Alliance for Broader impacts (NABI), the Association for Science Teacher Education (ASTE), and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), Brenda has also presented sessions at district workshops where she discussed the research-based strategies of mastery teaching & learning and inquiry-based teaching & learning and ways to implement them in the classroom. She is a passionate STEM educator who believes that mastery and inquiry are key to helping all students succeed, and she would like to continue to impact students by teaching these pedagogies in an educator preparation program in the future.
