Kandy Froehlick: Gizmo Educator of the Month

Kandy Froehlick, also known to his students as "Mr. F" and "Fro," has been teaching since he graduated from University of Lethbridge in 1997. He teaches several high school science courses, plus Forensic Science, Paleontology and Marine Biology at Rimbey Junior/Senior High School in Alberta, Canada.

Three years ago, his assistant superintendent asked him to learn more about Gizmos and possibly become a trainer. When he got together with ExploreLearning's training consultant, he was really impressed with the product and became involved in training other Alberta educators. He has been using Gizmos in his classroom ever since.

Mr. F points to the Mouse Genetics Gizmo as a great way to effectively demonstrate genetics to his ninth graders. They can actually see how two black mice could produce white offspring, if the parents have recessive genes for white fur. His students can also learn about the probabilities of fur colors via Punnett square predictions and repeated trials. He reports that after using this Gizmo, assessment scores were higher than previous years on the same genetics quiz.

“Gizmos are absolutely great for showing the students ideas that are abstract or too impractical to collect the data. Everything from balancing chemical reactions and being able to see the molecules to food chains and being able to see how the numbers are affected generation after generation. Gizmos make concepts real and fun to learn.”

Go Gizmos!