Features

The town of Faraday has a problem.

Its citizens are interested in building a magnetic train to make it easier to connect with other towns, but they need to figure out how to make the technology work.

That’s where the town’s scientists—in this case a group of two dozen Seattle 3rd, 4th and 5th graders enrolled in a summer learning program in the Beacon Hill neighborhood—come in.

It’s their job to collect evidence about how magnets work, determine whether the technology could be used to power a train and then explain their findings to the citizens of Faraday.

During her senior year of college, Raedell Cannie recalls the moment her academic path changed from journalism to education.

She was listening to a guest lecture from a journalist who described her research for a story on homelessness. The journalist got to know a homeless woman for the purposes of collecting information, but did not maintain the relationship after the story had been written.

The biggest steps toward a life of opportunity, toward the fullest flourishing of one’s potential, happen in a child’s earliest years. Yet in Washington, one in five children grows up in poverty, and fewer than half of the state’s children are kindergarten-ready across all six domains of childhood development.

On Oct. 20, eight of Washington’s leading early learning researchers will discuss how every child can be assured a strong start during EDU Talks: Raising Washington, hosted by the University of Washington College of Education.

After growing up alongside a family member with autism, Katy Bateman (PhD ‘17) was inspired to become a champion for inclusion in education.

Throughout her life, Bateman was intrigued by the therapies and education services that were used to help her cousin learn.

“She had limited language when she was younger and we worked a lot on her language,” Bateman said. “As I got older, I saw her language progress into speaking full sentences. She now has a part-time job and she loves it. Seeing her language start to click made me think, ‘How can I do this for other kids, too?’”