Smithsonian Voices

From the Smithsonian Museums

Carol O’Donnell

Dr. Carol O’Donnell is Director of the Smithsonian Science Education Center, dedicated to transforming K-12 Education through Science™ in collaboration with communities across the globe. Carol serves on numerous boards and committees dedicated to science education and is on the part-time faculty of the Physics Department at George Washington University, where she earned her doctorate. Carol began her career as a primary school teacher. Her TedX Talk demonstrates her passion for “doing science” and “object-driven learning.”

Globe with a quote "Are we educating our students to understand the complex global challenges of our time?"

Teaching About Real-World, Transdisciplinary Problems and Phenomena through Convergence Education

In its 2018 Federal STEM Strategic Plan, a collaboration of government agencies wrote that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education should move through a pathway where disciplines "converge" and where teaching and learning moves from disciplinary to transdisciplinary. Classroom examples help spotlight what this framework can look like in practice.

When the 2020-2021 school year started, 39 of the nation’s 50 largest school systems were among those that chose a distance learning instructional model. (ake1150sb/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

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