About

Joan Freese is an educational technologist at Twin Cities PBS, where she focuses on projects for the K-8 audience, parents, and teachers. She serves as Project Director for Superhero School (working title), a five-year Ready to Learn project, focused on science and literacy for children ages 5-8, funded by the U.S. Department of Education. She is PI for SciGirls Code: A National Connected Learning Model to Integrate Computing in STEM Learning with Middle School Girls, supported by the National Science Foundation’s STEM + Computing Partnerships Program. And she is Project Manager for Splash Screen: Students Engaging Local Watersheds Using Mobile Technologies, which combines place-based education with mobile learning to teach about watersheds. This collaboration with Urban 4H clubs, engages middle school youth in Duluth and Minneapolis/St. Paul who live near Lake Superior and the Mississippi River, respectively. Under Joan’s leadership, the SciGirls website, designed to engage tween girls in STEM, earned a national Emmy Award for New Approaches in children’s programming. Joan has written numerous non-fiction books for children.