From earthworms to heat shields: Trailblazing STEM educator teaches outside the textbook

Of all their inquiries, there’s one question the students at Raisbeck Aviation High School never ask science teacher Scott McComb. And that is, “When am I going to use this in real life?” “It’s been 20 years since someone’s asked me that question,” McComb said. That’s because McComb’s project-based program is focused on real-world applications where students do experiments and interact with industry experts. “The idea is, how do we connect the work that’s happening inside the classroom with work that’s happening outside the classroom?” he said. “And so we blur the line.” For his trailblazing approach, McComb is one… Read More

Apr 17, 2025 - 15:51

Science teacher Scott McComb with students at Raisbeck Aviation High School. (Raisbeck Aviation Photo)

Of all their inquiries, there’s one question the students at Raisbeck Aviation High School never ask science teacher Scott McComb. And that is, “When am I going to use this in real life?”

“It’s been 20 years since someone’s asked me that question,” McComb said.

That’s because McComb’s project-based program is focused on real-world applications where students do experiments and interact with industry experts.

“The idea is, how do we connect the work that’s happening inside the classroom with work that’s happening outside the classroom?” he said. “And so we blur the line.”

For his trailblazing approach, McComb is one of two instructors being celebrated at this year’s GeekWire Awards as a STEM Educator of the Year. The second honoree is Fatima Kamal, an education program supervisor at Seattle’s Pacific Science Center, who will be separately featured on GeekWire.

First Tech is sponsoring the award, and Kamal and McComb will be recognized at the GeekWire Awards event on April 30 at Seattle’s Showbox SoDo.

Back in the classroom, McComb’s ninth-grade students are asked to design and build a heat shield to protect a chocolate bunny from the super hot temperatures produced when a spacecraft reenters the Earth’s atmosphere. The project culminates in presentations to thermodynamicists from companies such as Boeing, Blue Origin and Space X.

“Instead of just turning in a piece of paper at the end, or a worksheet, they have a design file, and they present it to practicing engineers who say, ‘So, tell me a little about that,” McComb said. “So it really raises the stakes for the students to think deeply and be able to explain their ideas and their thinking.”

Raisbeck Aviation is a public high school in Tukwila, located just south of Seattle. Students apply to the school and are admitted by lottery.

McComb is also the school’s Science Olympiad coach and previously led the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics student club. He has served as the Highline School District science chair, and was named the National Aerospace Teacher of the Year in 2019.

McComb hopes the school can be a “lighthouse” for other educators eager to take a similarly hands-on approach.

Science teacher Scott McComb. (Raisbeck Aviation Photo)

To be successful, he said, requires cultivating an “entrepreneurial mindset” in teachers.

The educators need to build relationships and find partners in the community who will engage with the program, McComb added. That includes administrators, families and volunteers who are experts in the fields being studied.

Champions of this style of instruction also need to be risk-takers, he said. They need to be creative in developing project-based learning that fits their budget.

A few years ago, McComb had students investigate how organic pollutants break down in a variety of different conditions by using earthworms as detectors of the contaminants — sort of a wriggly alternative to the canary-in-a-coal-mine concept.

“We could have written a grant for $90,000 worth of mass spectrometers, but 10 earthworms per kid does the same thing,” he said. “So why not have students do real science, or get as close as we can, or use simulations of processes that are being used in industry.”

McComb doesn’t expect all of his graduates to pursue careers an aerospace. But he does want them to leave Raisbeck Aviation with an understanding of the scientific process, and feeling empowered and confident to take on big challenges.

“I consider myself successful,” he said, “when they walk out as agents of their own future.”

Editor’s note: STEM Educator of the Year is presented by First Tech.

Astound Business Solutions is the presenting sponsor of the 2025 GeekWire Awards. Thanks also to gold sponsors JLL, Baird, Wilson Sonsini, Baker Tilly, First Tech, ALLtech, and WTIA, and supporting sponsor Showbox Presents.