Teacher Tammy Needham uses a variety of creative activities to enliven learning for her third graders at Sundance Elementary School in Sundance. Her students fold origami while learning about Japan and study human bones on a skeleton costume worn by one of their classmates. Even math is taught with the aid of visual models. Miss Needham initiated and serves as a coach for Sundance's Destination Imagination/Odyssey of the Mind program, which engages students in team-based, creative problem-solving. Both gifted and struggling students have benefited from this program, and test scores have improved for those who participate. Miss Needham also launched a Family Math program, in which parents come to school to engage in math activities with their children. She received a Christa McAuliffe Fellowship in 1997 and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching in 1999.
1987 University of Wyoming, B.A.
