Michael Parker:  

Although not a permanent part of the Life Long Learning Center or Roper Mountain Science Center Staff, Mike is not a new face at either place. He developed Design a Computer Game and Computer Guts for Computer Nuts for the Roper Mountain Summer Science Program and has helped over 50 young people learn programming skills and over 40 learn to upgrade and repair their own computers since the summer of 2005. He has taught Introduction to Computers for Educators twenty-two times since 1998 enhancing the professional development of over 363 educators. He has helped teach the Geology portion of the P.L.U.S. Institute since 1993, which was the year the program first began. In the P.L.U.S. Institute Mike has worked to improve the technical proficiency of over 456 of South Carolina's middle and high school science teachers. He began teaching the INTEL Teach to the Future class in 2006 with a class of 14. However, you're more likely to run into him at one of Greenville's middle schools teaching science to a classroom full of eager 7th graders. Mike is a native of Greenville County and has been a classroom teacher over 29 years. He attended the University of South Carolina, Clemson, and Furman University. He received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Elementary Education from Furman in 1976 and earned his Master of Arts, also from Furman, in 1986. Mike has since acquired his Masters Plus 30 and is designated Highly Qualified in the areas of Middle Level Science and Elementary Education by the state of South Carolina. He has the distinction of being selected by the University of South Carolina to be the Earth Science Teacher Resource Agent (ESTRA) for Anderson, Oconee, and Pickens Counties from 1990 to 1995. Mike has also received special recognition from his peers by being selected as the 1980 Teacher of the Year at Mountain View Elementary and by his former students by being included in the 1992, 1998 and 2005 editions of Who's Wh...Expand for more