Receiving the Presidential Award is an amazing recognition for my ongoing passion to bring science learning alive for my young learners. My students are naturally curious, and I strive to meet the challenge of integrating science in creative ways that allow hands-on exploration. Ongoing professional development and engaging with others in my field are essential components that have allowed me to create a reflective teaching approach. This award symbolizes teaching as an ongoing experience!

Katrina Madok Key West, FL | K-6, Science, 2020

The official biography below was current at the time of the award.

Katrina Madok has been an amazing educator for almost 30 years, currently teaching elementary science and kindergarten through fifth grade Gifted Education at Gerald Adams Elementary School, where she has been for the past 13 years. She previously taught at Marathon High School for two years and for Kesher, LD for four years. Katrina spent her first 10 years teaching in Southern California. Katrina’s love for teaching is evident inside her classroom through creative hands-on science investigations for her young learners. She regularly incorporates STEM challenges to allow students opportunities to explore topics from different perspectives. Outside the classroom, her passion toward environmental education is evident in school-wide recycling, gardening, and endangered species awareness projects. Her desire to integrate coding and robotics activities into her school led to the creation of afterschool bots and coding groups. Students as early as kindergarten actively use a variety of robots to engage critical thinking skills and learn the foundations for coding. She has written several grants and had robots on loan to obtain materials for this program. Katrina has served as an advisory board member to Infiniscope for two years, coached Odyssey of the Mind Teams, and participated in citizen science projects with her students. She has presented at local, state, and national conferences on topics related to robotics and STEM. She received the elementary Florida Ag in the Classroom award in 2014. Katrina earned a B.A. in liberal arts and an M.Ed. in special education from University of San Diego. She is certified in elementary education and has many additional endorsements in special education, reading, gifted, and English to Speakers of Other Languages.

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