Paige Richards

Background

About Paige Richards

Educators should be a lighthouse - a guiding beacon helping students reach their target destination. Using my previous experiences in lab research and 10+ years of classroom experience, I design activities to emphasize student choice and voice while fostering the development of critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration. In any endeavor, I want students to come away with stronger skills, new knowledge, and a positive experience. Every day in my classroom is a new adventure. Are we doing an escape room to learn about endangered animals and save a trafficked pangolin? Perhaps we are creating folktales to explain cosmic phenomena, debunking conspiracy theories, discussing that currently erupting volcano, or collaborating on a proposal to better mitigate hurricane damage in coastal communities. Maybe you will walk in on a project workday where you can find students exploring a topic of their choosing by engaging in experiments, art campaigns, engineering tasks, and more. Past projects have included researching animal and plant-based milks, creating eco-friendly paints, filming a planetary baking vlog, designing a model electric vehicle, and writing a travel journal exploring Thailand's ecological landscape. With 20+ new projects each semester, there's always something new we're learning. As a strong proponent of experiential learning, I firmly believe what happens outside of the classroom is as important as what happens within the classroom. With that in mind, I advocate for meaningful, diverse extracurricular/community experiences for students and work closely with my student club leaders to design engaging activities and strengthen their leadership skills. My students in STEM club have explored the world through 18 different projects this year alone including making sourdough starters, mentoring a local elementary robotics team, creating a wildflower guidebook using handmade paper, killing plants in multiple ways in our hydroponics system, and 3-D printing fidget toys. In Korean Club, we've delved into Korean culture, language and entertainment through hands-on activities, culinary exploration, and conversation circles shocking ourselves with how much chemistry is involved in the perfect K-pop inspired skincare routine. Collaboration and purposeful design make these activities possible. It's amazing how students grow when questions are always an option, and there's a safe space to learn from failure. I love being part of that journey. Strengths Finder: Learner, Intellection, Strategic, Achiever, Ideation