Award-Winning Teacher Inspires Students with Interactive Science

It’s not unusual to find Emma DeVine BS’19, MAT’21 collecting water samples in a stream or tagging monarch butterflies to study migration with her middle school students.

A University of Texas at Dallas alum, she has spent the last seven years teaching them the wonders of science not only in the classroom but also in the laboratory. This spring DeVine was named a Discovery Education Educator of the Year — one of five teachers nationwide to receive the honor.

“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.”

At UT Dallas, DeVine participated in 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 as an undergraduate biology major and was inspired to pursue a degree focused on science education after attending an informational meeting about opportunities for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teachers through UTeach Dallas.

After completing a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies, with a concentration in science education, in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, DeVine began teaching at Scoggins Middle School in McKinney, Texas. She simultaneously pursued a Master of Arts in Teaching in science education through UTeach Dallas, attending classes at night.

For DeVine, the support of UTD faculty made a huge difference in the direction and success of her 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 preservice 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 is as focused on expanding her science knowledge as she is about teaching it. She has participated in a number of science-based programs for teachers outside of 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 also has been a part of Groundwater to the Gulf, a summer institute for Central Texas educators, and participated in community science training through the Texas Stream Team program. DeVine used that training to launch local water quality monitoring efforts, partnering with the Lower Colorado River Authority to monitor a creek in Austin, where she taught at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School for the past two years. Her students have taken water samples from streams for testing.

“It’s amazing how many different ways you can be involved in science,” said DeVine, who returned to North Texas over the summer to teach at Greenhill School in Addison, Texas, this fall. “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 at UT Southwestern Medical Center as part of the Science Teacher Access to Resources at Southwestern (STARS) Summer Research Program. She worked with scientists in the Center for Hypothalamic Research who use fruit flies in the laboratory to study feeding behaviors and metabolism.

After her STARS program experience, DeVine introduced fruit fly experiments to her students. DeVine said the experiments are valuable because the lessons translate to human health and wellness.

“The STARS program was one of the most formative and inspiring experiences to be a part of,” she 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.”

DeVine said one of her missions is to encourage students to think critically and focus on learning from the process, rather than just getting the right answer in class. And for her 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.”