Belleville High Teacher to Participate in Prestigious Engineering Seminar

Isis Ramirez, an advanced placement biology, anatomy and physiology teacher at Belleville High School, is one of only 65 teachers set to attend an innovative science and teaching seminar hosted by the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education.

Belleville High announced Tuesday that Ramirez will attend the seminar, which will take place at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken. The program is conducted in two-part summer sessions, with the first one taking place in August.

The event will take four core principals of engineering --  design, analysis, systems, and modeling -- and apply them to teaching biology at a high-school level.

During the program, funded by the National Science Foundation, Ramirez and 24 other educators will collaborate on a plan to implement the new material into high school curriculums.

The NSF works to give teachers the resources to apply engineering concepts found in the Next Generation Science Standards in the classroom. The standards state that students be able to use their understanding to investigate the world around them through science inquiry and engineering design principles.

“Engineering was not a concept that I really understood as a young person, trying to choose a career path. It's only as an adult, that I realized that all innovation, in many different industries, is a result of the engineering process," Ramirez said. "My goal is to infuse the inquiry and problem solving, into my Biology lessons. I want the students to experience science, not just as a memorization of concepts and facts, but as an opportunity to creatively find solutions or ask further reaching questions, about the world around them."