Meet The SXSW Speakers: Joanna Mulholland

Joanna is a 6th grade teacher from Berkeley Township School District in New Jersey. Joanna used the Build to Launch series in her classroom this past fall and was interviewed for the TODAY Show. She is passionate about hands-on learning and delivering engaging lessons.

We asked Joanna to share one of her favorite learning memories, what she likes about STEAM and her favorite STEAM project.


What’s a memory you have from school where learning was fun?
I remember having fun creating a water cycle to observe in a large jar. We weren't successful immediately, but when we were it was amazing to see what we had been learning about happening right in front of us! I also remember building a model to demonstrate how erosion influences water quality.  This project took a lot of planning and many attempts to get right! I live in a beach community and proved how important it is to limit runoff pollution. 

What’s your favorite part about STEAM?
Math is my favorite part of STEAM. However, when I was in school I did not feel confident during math class. Math didn't "click" for me until early in my college years, but now I find myself more and more curious about it. I sincerely enjoy facilitating conversations and hands-on activities in the classroom that help students recognize patterns in math that they can then generalize and apply. When they are working on a STEAM project they often don't realize they are even "doing" math. My younger self would never have believed I would one-day love math! One wish I have for my students is that they find joy in numbers at an earlier age than I did.  

What is your favorite STEAM lesson/project to teach?
I love a good STEAM challenge, such as asking my students to build the tallest freestanding building possible with the provided materials in a given time. However, my favorite STEAM lesson that leads to a collaborative project is penny boats! We learn about buoyancy, salinity, and how boats are constructed before students apply this new knowledge to building foil boats. Teams then test their boat in containers of water with varying salinity and determine how many pennies it can support. The conversations, debates, and testing are always lively!