250: What It’s Like To Be a Dynamic High School STEAM Teacher & Scientist w/ Dr. Aidyl Gonzalez-Serricchio [Main T4C episode]

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Dr. Aidyl Gonzalez-Serricchio, Science Co-Chair and director of STEAM at The Buckley School, earned her B.S. in Biology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and then her Doctorate in Genetics from California Institute of Technology. Dr. Gonzalez-Serricchio also helps families with different learners through a non-profit organization she co-founded and co-directs called Gift over Learning Differences Initiative (GoLD Initiative). The GoLD Initiative provides after school STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) enrichment programs for youth in the Los Angeles area. The foundation’s mission is to provide an extensive, holistic educational experience to school-age students by providing the most entertaining, interesting, fast-moving and creative aspects of STEAM education through project-based learning by solving real-world science and engineering problems. Dr. Gonzalez was born and raised in the South Bronx, New York and is a wife, a mother, amateur magician and soon-to-be science astronaut candidate. She currently lives with her family in Southern California.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT IN THIS EPISODE: 

• What is STEAM is and why interdisciplinary learning is so important in K-12
• What a typical day looks like for Aidyl working as a scientist and educator
• How Aidyl keeps things interesting in the classroom and developed her teaching style
• How Aidyl overcame her own learning differences and background and uses those experiences in her classroom teaching 
• How a cockroach laying its eggs ignited Aidyl’s love and passion for science
• What challenges Aidyl has faced in her career and how she learned and grew from them