An Unusual Author Visit and a Well-Deserved Award

Jacqueline Barber - Associate Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley

We are very fortunate at the American School in London–  every year we have several wonderful children’s book authors come for a visit.   (One of my favorites was Kate DiCamillo – author of the wonderful book Because of Winn-Dixie).

But recently, we had a rather unusual author visiting in the Lower School.  For one thing this person was the author of non-fiction books.   Jacqueline Barber has written include a number of science books which are part of the reading for the 2^nd grade science unit called Designing Mixtures   One of these books is called Jess Makes Hair Gel and it is often one of the students' favorites.  (You can read a description of the book in the early post titled Building Smart Students).

As a result, many of the Grade 3 students were familiar with her books when Jacquey Barber came to ASL for a visit a few weeks ago.  She was able to spend time with both  John O’Toole and Jenna Laslocky’s classes.  She spent some of the time discussing her books and answering questions from the students and then she helped them as they continued making their observations and measurements of the weather and the plants and insects in the Lower School courtyard. 

But, writing cool children's science books is only a very small part of her job.  Most of the time she is busy managing a large curriculum research and development group because she is the Associate Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley and Director of its Curriculum Center.  So, having her visit for a day was a very unique opportunity.  This rare chance to spend time with her was only possible because Jacquey was on her way back to San Francisco traveling back from the conference of the International Society for Design and Development in Education (ISDDE) which was held this fall in Holland.

At the conference she was awarded an “Eddie”!  So we were able to celebrate a very well deserved award with her.

"The International Society for Design and Development in Education (ISDDE) recently announced the winner of the organization’s fifth annual design awards, known as “the Eddies,” to recognize excellence in design of educational products and materials in science or mathematics. The 2012 award winner and recipient of a $10,000 prize is Jacqueline Barber, Associate Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley, for  leadership of the design of Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading. Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading is a curriculum developed through a rigorous process to produce innovative materials with great demonstrated impact on students, teachers, and educational designers around the world."

You can read the whole announcement here.