94 | Presidential Libraries, Robots, & STEM: The Surprising Connection & How You Can Use These Resources | with Elizabeth Dinschel and Kristine Bullock

We cover quite a bit in this week’s episode Elizabeth Dinschel and Kristine Bullock: the work of Presidential Libraries, their public outreach and engagement of K-12 students, and a lot of social studies and language arts — and, of course, how that all ties back into STEM and STEM education. 

Elizabeth Dinschel is a historian working as an archivist and education specialist for the National Archives. She is actively involved with engaging children with history through National History Day, archival research, and leading professional development for teachers across the country. She is also a big advocate for cross-curricular development to bridge STEM education with social sciences, which is near and dear to us here at PAST.

Kristine Bullock is the Southeast Regional STEM Manager for the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council located at the University of Iowa and Kirkwood Community College. She is responsible for developing, promoting, implementing, and maintaining a seamless collaboration between other STEM regions’ K-12 teachers, administrators, post-secondary institutions, and business and industry partners.

This is actually the first opportunity we’ve had to share a conversation about the role of Presidential Libraries on the show, but they’re doing a lot of really incredible outreach that far too few people are aware of — and we want to change that!

We unbox:

• What do the 15 Presidential Libraries in the U.S. do?
• The role of The Presidential Records Act and the National Archives
• How Elizabeth and Kristine work together to help K-12 students
• The largely-untold (but freely available!) history of President Hoover and his wife in STEM
• How Hoover ran the government as an engineer
• Why are robotics at the Hoover library?
• How young students inspire the interns and employees at the Presidential Libraries to do more
• What is happening with Raspberry Pis and Hoover TV at the Hoover Library?
• How any teachers and administrators can start bringing hands-on STEM into their classroom and/or school
• How you can leverage resources from Presidential Libraries, even if you don’t live near one

Resources:

• Hoover Library
• Visit the Presidential Libraries online