About Us

The mission of the Santa Fe Science Initiative is to provide the best possible science instruction for elementary students and teachers and our goal is to ‘nurture the art of doing science and to promote science literacy.” To achieve this, SFSI has created an environment where teachers can learn from mentors in workshops, network with other teachers, develop curriculum extensions side by side with their peers and successfully implement what they’ve learned into their classrooms.

Having a mentor in a classroom not only guides teacher instruction and performance but also provides students with active support integrating science into their curriculum wherever possible. For instance, science investigations can easily incorporate literacy and math lessons. By stimulating the Santa Fe public school community over the past five years, SFSI has been successful in demonstrating a model of strategies that support good science instruction in elementary schools. Every year, many teachers and principals express interest in joining the SFSI program to have on-going science support …at this point, more than SFSI can afford to include without additional funds. In the future, the Santa Fe Science Initiative hopes to secure enough funding to open a Regional Resource facility that will be capable of serving all interested schools in northern New Mexico.


List Board of Directors and titles

Susan McIntosh M.A.
Diane Catron M.S
Dr. Victor Cook
Dr. Robert Eisenstein
Dr. Smith Holt
Dr. William E. Keller
Estelle Kramer M.A.
Michael J. Lee M.A.
Dr. Harshini Mukundan
Dr. Kurt Steinhaus
Dr. Anne Weaver

History

The Santa Fe Science Initiative formed in 2001 as a collaborative effort of three professionals in the Santa Fe community: Phil Smith, a Santa Fe/Washington D.C scientist. John Silver, Santa Fe parent, attorney, philanthropist; and Susan McIntosh, Santa Fe Public Schools teacher who has spent most of her 25 year career working with kit-based science. With their combined talent, interest and knowledge about science education for children and professional development for teachers, they created a pilot program that has demonstrated to Santa Fe teachers, parents, students, and school leaders how to successfully change teaching science in grades 1-6 from exclusively “book learning” to “investigations that are based on inquiry using hands-on materials “.