Her Story
Pascale Pinner says everything she has done in her 36-year career reflects her passion for learning about the world. It began at home, building things with her father, including a Heathkit television. She went to college planning on medical school, but a professor encouraged her toward teaching. She earned a biology degree from the University of Hawaii at Hilo in 1987, teaching certificates there in 1987 and 1991, and a Ph.D. in educational and teacher leadership from Concordia University Chicago in 2012. She became National Board Certified in early adolescent science in 2002 and has renewed it twice.
She began teaching in 1988 and has spent her career in Hawaii’s public schools, teaching Earth and space science at Hilo Intermediate School. A colleague who has worked beside her since 2004 says she “always finds the positive points about everyone she interacts with.” She was Hawaii State Teacher of the Year in 2008, won the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching in 2003, and served as an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy in 2018-2019. Under her science department’s revised curriculum, the school’s students have reached 60% proficiency on the state science assessment, compared with 41% statewide.
Beyond the Classroom
Since 2009, Pinner has mentored more than 40 of her former 8th graders in district and state science fairs and at the International Science and Engineering Fair, where students have earned fourth- and third-place Grand Awards. Four of her students have been national finalists in the Young Scientist Challenge. She helped start a research partnership with Hilo High School that now includes a directed studies program and a STEM Capstone class.
When schools closed in 2020, she created 100 “Backpacks of Science Awesomeness,” then the “Envelopes of Science Awesomeness”: printed lessons and bags of simple supplies so that students and teachers could do real experiments at home. The project now reaches 54 teachers in grades 3-8 and over 2,100 students a year, with participating schools improving their state science scores. She also brought the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Summer Physics Camp for Young Women to Hawaii and has taken students to New Mexico. She is president of the Hawaii Science and Technology Museum board, principal investigator on an NSF-funded partnership to build place-based science curriculum, and has mentored new teachers for 30 years. In the 1990s her team’s “All in the Ohana” service-learning program had students refinishing a county beach park pavilion.
Philosophy Into Practice
Pinner’s classroom is built on “hands-on, minds-on” science, and she says her most-used response to a curious student is, “Let’s try it out and see what it does.” Her students collect real data, such as the year she partnered with a sensor company so that every 8th grader tested water at seven sites along a local watershed, while she studied the effect on content knowledge and motivation. She tracks pre- and post-test gains by unit using a data team process.
She gives students who struggle extra time at lunch, recess and weekends, and expects every one of them to produce a science fair project with a display and a paper.
“When students leave my class, I want them to have a life-long “love” of science, and master the skills necessary to be a positive citizen scientist.”Dr. Pascale Pinner
In Her Own Words
“I believe that EVERY child matters, can learn, and will contribute to our world.”Dr. Pascale Pinner
“Let’s try it out and see what it does”Dr. Pascale Pinner, to her students
“My class is a place where a child can freely take risks learning through problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and the application of their solutions to real world problems.”Dr. Pascale Pinner
What Others Said
“Dr. Pinner’s teaching philosophy centers on the belief that every student can learn and excel in science.”Travis Toriano, principal, Hilo Intermediate School
“Dr. Pinner truly believes that everyone can do science, and she instills in her students the confidence to learn.”Jill and Austyn Bugado, parent and former student
“She always finds the positive points about everyone she interacts with and especially of the kids we all teach.”Cynthia Fong and Adam Greenblatt, colleague and parents
“It’s impossible to be around her without feeling inspired to reach higher and think bigger.”Cammie Newmyer, fellow Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow