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GRCC Lab Tech wins national awards!
GRCC alum snags national job!

by Matthew Swenson, GRCC FOUNDATION

It's clear that math and science are priorities for today's employers - and are difficult subjects to teach. While high school students in Southeast King County recently improved their WASL scores in reading and writing, their math and science scores dipped lower.

Green River's physics department is working to reverse this trend - and is being recognized for its achievements! The National American Association of Physics Teachers recently hired Green River alumnus Andrea Roma and awarded GRCC employee Brett Carroll not one, but three of its six annual prizes for outstanding inventions in the teaching of science.
Andrea came to Green River as a married mother of four in search of a career. Her classes awakened a love of science which led her to take every physics class offered at the college. Her enthusiasm was supported by Green River, including a scholarship from the GRCC Foundation. While working on a cosmic ray detector now installed at the new Marv Nelson Science Learning Center, Andrea and a classmate built a potato-firing vacuum cannon that was set off at the science center's grand opening.

Andrea's application to AAPT was so strong that it resulted in both a scholarship and an invitation to apply for a summer internship. Now she's earning her undergraduate degree at the UW and will be paid by AAPT to help recruit future science teachers!
 

GRCC alumna Andrea Roma was honored first with a summer internship at AIP. Unique among the interns, her hard work for the program was rewarded with a continuing position with AAPT.

Brett Carroll is Green River's lab technician for physics and geology. His passion is inventing gadgets that inspire students - and not just college students. For the past three years, Brett has coordinated GRCC's Summer Math Blast in Enumclaw. This program trains future teachers by putting on creative math activities for elementary school students in Enumclaw.

Brett Carroll's "Scaling With Bolts" apparatus won first prize at a national competition of physicists in Greensboro, N.C.

Brett took 3rd place overall at the AAPT conference for his ingenious devices. He also won both prizes for outstanding science education tools costing less than $65 to build. Said GRCC instructor Keith Clay with a smile, "National AAPT conventions used to be places where I could enjoy fifteen minutes of fame, but at this conference everybody wanted to talk to Brett!"

Andrea and Brett's success proves that much like the bond between student and teacher, Green River's physics department is a team effort led by people who know and love science.