Teacher Inspires Young Minds with Interactive Science

It’s not unusual to find Emma DeVine BS’19, MAT’21 knee-deep in a stream collecting water samples or participating in a research project like tagging monarch butterflies to study migration. And the neat thing about her hands-on activities is that she’s often accompanied by students truly experiencing science.

DeVine is a middle school teacher who has spent the last seven years opening the eyes of her students to the wonders of science not only in the classroom but also in the laboratory. Her reputation has spread, and this spring she was named a Discovery Education Educator of the Year — one of five teachers nationwide honored.

DeVine is a graduate of The University of Texas at Dallas’ UTeach Dallas, a program in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics that focuses on recruiting, developing and retaining secondary mathematics, science and computer science teachers. She started her UTD education as an undergraduate biology major and was inspired to pursue a degree focused on science education after attending an informational meeting about opportunities for STEM teachers through UTeach Dallas.

“It never really crossed my mind to become a teacher, but I knew I wanted to do something in the science realm as a career,” DeVine said. “I really enjoyed it.”

After completing her bachelor’s degree in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies with a concentration in science education, DeVine began teaching at Scoggins Middle School in Frisco, Texas. She simultaneously enrolled in the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree program through UTeach Dallas, attending classes at night and graduating in 2021.

For DeVine, the support she received from UTD faculty made a huge difference in the direction and success of her teaching career. In 2022, she was named the Outstanding Rookie Science Teacher of the Year by the Science Teachers Association of Texas.

“The director of the UTeach Dallas program, Dr. Mary Urquhart, and associate director, Katherine Donaldson, are so passionate and supportive of pre-service and veteran teachers,” DeVine said. “All of the faculty I worked with had such integral parts in making me passionate about science education and seeing how important it is to be raising the next generation of scientifically literate, critical thinkers.”

DeVine taught at Scoggins Middle School for two years and then moved to the Dallas-area Greenhill School until her husband’s job took them to Austin, Texas, where she taught at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School. This summer the couple is moving back to Dallas and DeVine will once again teach at Greenhill School, a place where she says the community inspires and challenges her in the classroom.

DeVine is as focused on expanding her own science knowledge as she is about teaching it. She has participated in a number of science-based programs for teachers outside of the classroom and believes in the importance of being a citizen scientist who pursues knowledge as a way to personal growth. And, of course, that growth finds its way back into the classroom.

In 2024, DeVine was awarded a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Science Ambassador Fellowship in Atlanta, an opportunity for educators to learn how to teach about public health and epidemiology. She’s also been a part of the Groundwater to Gulf Summer Institute for Central Texas Educators and has participated in community science training through the Texas Stream Team program. She used that training to launch local water quality monitoring efforts partnering with the Lower Colorado River Authority to monitor a creek in Austin to support regional conservation initiatives. She’s even taken her students on field trips to take water samples from streams for testing.

“It’s amazing how many different ways you can be involved in science,” DeVine said. “As a teacher I started to see how much of an impact you can have in terms of educating and inspiring the kids.”

DeVine has conducted research as a teacher-mentee working with scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center as part of the Science Teacher Access to Resources at Southwestern (STARS) Summer Research Program. She worked with researchers in the Center for Hypothalamic Research who use fruit flies in the laboratory to study feeding behaviors and effects on metabolism.

After her experience in the lab through the STARS program, DeVine introduced fruit fly experiments to students in her classroom at Greenhill School and later at St. Andrew’s Episcopal. DeVine said fruit fly experiments are valuable because what is learned translates to human health and wellness.

“The STARS program was one of the most formative and inspiring experiences to be a part of,” DeVine said. “And the most important thing I took out of it was being able to bring back to the school what I did in the lab and translate that into something the kids could do. They collect authentic data, analyze it and translate that to human health.”

Along with research projects and citizen-science involvement, DeVine has participated in dozens of science and education conferences, symposiums and workshops all over Texas and the United States. This summer she is traveling to Maine to participate in the Teacher Institute for Watershed Science and Conservation, which offers ecology-based training.

“One of the most important parts of these programs is networking with other educators and figuring out how to take what you’ve learned back to the classroom,” DeVine said.

DeVine said one of her missions is to encourage students to think critically and to be less concerned about just getting the right answer in class, but rather to learn from the process. And for DeVine that means leading students in hands-on science.

“Getting students to engage and be interested in science at that age can really set them on a trajectory for having a strong interest in STEM subjects,” DeVine said. “And one of the most important factors is hands-on inquiry where they’re actually doing science. It’s messy and chaotic but it’s so important for these students to see themselves as scientists at a young age.”

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