Reagan High Science Teacher Co-Writes Article for National Publication

Aaron Willey, who teaches physical science and honors chemistry at Reagan High School, is the co-author of an article called “More is Less” in the October 2012 edition of Science and Children, a publication of National Science Teachers Association.

“Science educators and researchers around the world subscribe to this publication and we are proud to have one of our own science teachers as a contributor,” said Benika Thompson, the school system’s K-12 Program Manager for science. “Congratulations, Aaron!” 

Willey focused on problem-based learning (PBL) when earning her master's degree in education at Wake Forest University. The article came about as part of a joint project between the biology and education departments at Wake Forest, Willey said. Dr. Gloria Muday was doing work with tomato genetics and Dr. Michelle Klosterman was trying to find ways to bring this exciting research into the classrooms as problem-based learning. Willey helped trained undergraduate biology students who worked with students at Mount Tabor High, Jefferson Middle and Whitaker Elementary schools and co-wrote the paper with Klosterman.   

“I'm extremely interested in using PBL to get students (especially females) interested in pursuing the physical sciences," Willey said. “I'm looking forward to writing more in the area of PBL and also using modeling as a technique in chemistry. (Currently it's a popular method in physics). I am also currently interested in using computational science techniques to integrate more STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) training for our students. I attended a computational science workshop in Dublin, Ireland this past winter so I've been trying to incorporate a lot of the new techniques I learned in the classroom.”

After earning an earlier master's degree in materials science and engineering from Clemson University, Willey worked as an engineer for Michelin for several years. Training others, she discovered a passion for teaching. After teaching a pre-engineering course at a high school, she entered the master’s program at Wake Forest.

“It's been a long road, but I'm finally doing what I love!” Willey said. “I was working in the area of spider silk research at Clemson.  It was an exciting area that used cloning techniques to try and replicate the material properties of spider silk, which is a completely renewable resource. As an Earth Club sponser at Reagan, I also want to incorporate this research into my classes.  There are just so many exciting areas of research that are perfect for getting students interested in science."

Willey is also one of 51 teachers who received an Endeavor Fellowship from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. For more information about that go to Wake Forest University