Inspiring Science Teachers

Title: You Can Get Paid to Make Eyeshadow? A STEM Career Story

Host: Chris Stoker

Guests: Mara Reed, Chief Operating Officer, Artisan Labs; Sonya McGruder, STEM Ecosystem Hub Coordinator, Magic Valley

Mara Reed’s journey from making soap with her mom at age nine to leading technical operations at an Idaho cosmetics manufacturer is a great reminder that STEM careers can grow from unexpected places. In this episode, we explore the science, business, and career opportunities behind some of the products we use every day.

In This Episode:

• Part 1 — The Science of Cosmetics: How chemistry, microbiology, formulation, stability testing, and manufacturing come together to create safe, effective personal care products.
• Part 2 — Mara’s Story: From a small farm and a garage-based family business to discovering cosmetic science as a career.
• Part 3 — STEM Career Connections: The many roles behind cosmetics manufacturing, including chemistry, microbiology, research and development, quality, manufacturing, communications, and business.

Key Takeaways:

• STEM careers can be found in places students may not expect—including cosmetics and personal care products.
• Hands-on experiences such as internships and industry connections can help students see what STEM careers actually look like.
• Connecting students with local businesses can make STEM careers feel much less abstract.
• STEM workplaces require more than technical knowledge; communication, spreadsheets, email, calendars, and other everyday technology skills matter too.
• Mara’s advice to her younger self: “Experiment sooner.”

Title: Elevating Student Voice with the Idaho Ecosystem Student Ambassador Program

Host: Chris Stoker

Guests: Darrell & Cohen (Student Ambassadors), Sonya McGruder & Ashley Schaffner (STEM Hub Coordinators)

Welcome to the kickoff of Season 5! Host Chris Stoker explores the Idaho Ecosystem Student Ambassador (IESA) program—a flexible initiative for 6th–12th graders that empowers students to lead in STEM without adding heavy workloads for educators.

In This Episode:

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  Part 1 (Student Perspective): Recent grad Darrell Libbe and rising senior Cohen Adams discuss stepping into leadership roles, judging elementary 3D-printing projects at the Idaho Design Expo, and bringing genuine student feedback to regional education leaders.

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  Part 2 (Program Breakdown): STEM Hub Coordinators Sonya and Ashley explain how IESA works and how teachers or community advisors can easily integrate it into existing clubs or classes.

Key Takeaways:

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  Student-Driven STEM: Projects range from daily morning announcement science jokes to researching local invasive species.

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  The 3 Program Pillars: Every ambassador completes a student-led project, a leadership interview with a local mentor, and a STEM industry tour.

• Zero Extra Teacher Workload: Operates as an "umbrella" framework for existing robotics/science clubs and can even be advised by parent volunteers.

Timestamps:

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  00:00 – Season 5 Kickoff & IESA Overview

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  01:51 – Student Ambassadors Darrell Libby & Cohen Adams

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  04:20 – Behind the Scenes: Judging 3D-Printing Competitions

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  08:56 – Advocating for Student Voice at Education Panels

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  13:51 – Advice for Middle & High School Students

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  15:39 – Program Deep-Dive with Coordinators Sonya & Ashley

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  17:05 – The 3 Core Pillars: Projects, Interviews & Tours

• 18:50 – Low-Workload Integration for Teachers

Link for students, parents or advisors to apply:EcosySTEM Student Ambassadors | EcosySTEM

What does it really take to shift a science classroom from covering content to helping students make sense of phenomena? In this episode, Chris Stoker talks with Emily and Jamie about the lessons they learned while leading an Idaho Science Teaching Association book study on Ambitious Science Teaching (AST).

Practical tips discussed about AST strategies:

• they force students to think more deeply
• they work k-12 and you can start off small
• they raise state test scores

link to Idaho Science Teaching Association book study page

For this episode Becky and Chris interview Branzell Porchia, STEM Program Manager, and Amanda Paterson, Computer Science Program Manager with WDC + STEM.  They have a great passion for connecting  teachers and kids with stem resources in our state.  Two take aways: 1) the big impact we can have on students when we give them powerful learning experiences and 2) the vast number of opportunities that Idaho offers to help prepare students for STEM and the workforce.

Resources links:

Idaho STEM Action Center https://stem.idaho.gov/

Next Steps Idaho https://nextsteps.idaho.gov/

Launch Scholarship https://nextsteps.idaho.gov/launch

STEM Diploma Scholarship https://stem.idaho.gov/stem-id/

Learning Blade https://stem.idaho.gov/learning-blade/

Code.org https://code.org/en-US

EngineeringbyDesign https://www.iteea.org/engineering-bydesign

Idaho Science and Engineering Fairs https://stem.idaho.gov/idsef/

Hour of AI https://stem.idaho.gov/csedweek/

ISTEM https://stem.idaho.gov/istem/

In this episode Chris shares 4 things he would do if he were jumping back into a classroom to start February. These are ideas that would hopefully help when your class (or you) are starting to drag before spring break.  They are 1) stop explaining so much, 2) simplify and streamline, 3) protect your energy, and 4) double down on what works.

In this episode, Chris interviews 5 students about the Idaho EcosySTEM Student Ambassador program. Through this program, students in 6-12th grade engage in hands-on projects, participate in industry tours, and build collaboration and leadership skills while making a meaningful impact in their school and community. It is modeled after the Chief Science Officer Program. Learn more here .

In this episode, Becky and Chris interviewed Carrie and Camp, two educators from the New England Innovation Academy (NEIA) near Boston.  They are doing some great things with students, and we are excited to share the conversation with you.  Even though they teach are a small innovative school, almost all of their ideas could be implemented in any school setting.

Billy Almon was a keynote speaker at the 2025 Idaho STEM Conference in Meridian Idaho on July 30-August 1st, 2025.

Billy's bio: Over the last 10 years Billy has been traveling the globe exploring how biological strategies can be used to inspire solutions for humans, a concept known as Biomimicry. Billy is also the co-host of Little Giants, a tv series on Animal Planet. For more than a decade Billy worked as an Imagineer for the Walt Disney Company, where he honed his talents as a storyteller, inventor, futurist, and world-builder. He has a Bachelor of Architecture from Howard University and a Master of Science in Biomimicry from Arizona State University. In addition to his strong storytelling efforts, Billy also uses insights from biology to highlight ideas for space exploration.

Learn more at his website:Billy Almon, The Astrobiofuturist | STEM, Space & Biomimicry Speaker

Hi and welcome to the Inspiring Science Teachers' Podcast. My name is Chris Stoker and on this show, we love to interview teachers and pick their brains for some of the great lessons and ideas they've developed for teaching science.

For this episode, Becky and I interviewed Lingpei Zou, a middle school teacher in Rigby Idaho. Lingpei has an interesting story of coming to this country from China. She now teaches in a dual emersion program and gets to teach robotics on Fridays. Lingpei shares was got her excited from attending the NSTA national conference a few months ago in Philadelphia. Here are some great quotes from the keynotes: "embrace your 1% uniqueness" and "Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge." She shared many things that resonated with her from the sessions and the vendor exhibits. But for me the biggest thing was she got us excited about continuing to learn as adults and to take every opportunity to attend a local conference. Let's jump into it.

I was recently looking over some curriculum we had written for a middle school science about waves, and I wondered why this standard was so different from how we have traditional taught the subject.  It seemed to focus on a different part - more on how the waves interact with and move through a material. Then it dawned on me, this standard is really about material science.

For this episode, Becky and I chat with two experts in this area, Becky Heckman, a teacher leader and materials science camp trainer from Ohio and Dr Mike Hurley, a professor in the Micron School of Material Science & Engineering at Boise State University.  We discuss what material science is all about, why it's important in our modern world, and what careers opportunities it prepares students to tackle. We also discuss an awesome camp teachers can attend to receive valuable training on how to integrate more hands-on investigations into your science classrooms.