Alliance for Catholic Education
Forging a New Path for Science: Creating Place-Based Curriculums
“How do we make science meaningful? How do we make it more welcoming?”
Dr. Katie Schenkel, (ACE 18, New Orleans), endeavored to answer these questions throughout her time as a teacher, Ph.D. student, and associate professor beginning in August at San Diego State. Her goal is for educators to understand their role as “not just teaching science to take a test… but as a tool for social change”.
Schenkel’s dedication to revitalizing the discipline of science through her research has earned her the 2025 Michael Pressley Award for Promising Scholar in the Education Field. Named for the first academic director of ACE, Dr. Michael Pressley, this annual award recognizes ACE alumni who have made significant contributions to Catholic education through their research.
Schenkel found her way to education through ACE. While an undergraduate at Notre Dame she was uncertain about next steps, but knew she was at her “happiest working with kids” and was “passionate about science”. ACE Teaching Fellows seemed the perfect fit, so she embarked on her career teaching middle school science at Our Lady of Prompt Succor in the Diocese of New Orleans.
From the start, Schenkel knew she wanted to restructure science education. She observed that many of the examples used in science lacked applicability to the lives of her students, placing a barrier between them and meaningful science engagement. This was an issue she found to be common, putting many students at a disadvantage.
“Science needs to be meaningful to kids’ lives.”
In order to make this happen, Schenkel identified the necessity of getting to know her students and their communities. Through this knowledge, she could incorporate “important parts of who they are” into the science she taught.
After ACE, Schenkel moved to Illinois to teach at Chicago Jesuit Academy, where she repeatedly found herself wondering how science could be better taught. She considered how to change not only the curriculum but also teacher instruction. Quickly realizing “these are graduate school questions”, Schenkel found her next step.
Even as an ACE alum, Schenkel found great support in the ACE community. “Matt Kloser taught my first science methods course, but he also taught me about how to apply for graduate school”. She felt emboldened by the ACE faculty and staff who provided a network of “people able to see my possibilities even beyond what I could initially see”.
As a part of her doctoral program at Michigan State, Schenkel worked on a project known as I-Engineering. This project sought to create middle school science units that effectively taught students how to utilize engineering concepts to create inventions powered by renewable energy. Students had a stake in these inventions because the end goal of the inventions was to improve their own classroom.
Schenkel prepared her dissertation by developing an ecology unit for a local school. The focus of her work was on the planning process itself. Schenkel utilized participatory planning, a unique method that allows students to be a part of the behind-the-scenes process. As a teacher plans out the unit, they meet with their students to elicit ideas on projects or concepts that the students wish to target. This creates a “distribution of decision-making”. Schenkel helped a local teacher and her classroom implement participatory planning to create a unit centered around locally invasive garlic mustard, a topic with which students could tangibly engage.
Through her research, Schenkel was able to provide insight into the participatory process, showing that this type of planning “restructures how power operates within classrooms by positioning kids as important stakeholders who have ideas that are really valuable to making learning even more meaningful.”
Schenkel graduated in 2019 with a Ph.D. in curriculum instruction and teacher education. After a one-year post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan, she left the cold of Michigan to settle in sunny California as an associate professor at San Diego State.
Schenkel teaches a variety of classes, including science methods for elementary credential students, action research for masters students, and doctoral supervision. Her first three doctoral students graduated this past spring.
Throughout her years teaching at all levels, Schenkel continues to abide by the mantra of the ACE academic director and science methods professor, Dr. Thomas Doyle (Doc):
“Teach students, not subjects”.
Now, as a professor of future teachers herself, she tries to follow Doc’s footsteps in imparting this human-centered approach to teaching.
Although mostly found in higher-ed classrooms, Schenkel makes sure to return to her roots weekly by visiting elementary school classrooms as part of her research. Seeing their joy and curiosity helps her remember, “This is why I do the work.”
Currently, Schenkel is working with a local school to create wetland units for their 2nd, 3rd, and 5th grade classrooms. For the last two years, she’s been helping the teachers practice participatory planning in order to ensure the classwork is meaningful to both the students and the broader community.
Schenkel’s dream is that K-12 science education leaves behind the method of using irrelevant examples for difficult topics taught only as essentials for college. Each year of her career has been dedicated to breathing life back into the discipline by making science more “place-based” and encouraging teachers to focus on local phenomena. Rather than using examples of scientific concepts given in textbooks, Schenkel practices with her preservice teachers how to find examples that are local to their own communities.
Ultimately, Schenkel hopes that the creation of a more personalized science curriculum will invite more students in, allowing them to see themselves in the topics being taught. Her work goes beyond creating a more inclusive discipline, however. She also hopes that by giving students chances to apply their scientific expertise through projects that actually engage and aid their community, students will realize that they can use science as a tool to improve the world around them.
Schenkel has come a far way from where she began her educational career in Matt Kloser’s classroom the first summer of ACE. Now, she too instructs upcoming teachers, passing on the love for science she originally shared with him. While it seems long ago now, Schenkel won’t forget.
“ACE gave me a passion for teaching… I’ll always be grateful for that.”