A top Killeen ISD graduate of 2021 brought her growing expertise in meteorology to second-graders at Haynes Elementary School.
Sarah Kennison, salutatorian of the Harker Heights High School Class of 2021 graduated early from the University of Texas and is working on a PhD at Florida State University.
She’s also a scientist.
After sharing parts of her research with students in Florida, she asked her mom, campus instructional coach at Haynes, if she might do the same in Killeen.
Jennifer Kennison was happy to host her daughter at the school to teach about clouds and the atmosphere.
The doctoral student led the second-grade students through the scientific method asking them to hypothesize what would happen when water was heated in a tank.
The students drew pictures of what they expected to happen and watched a video of a tank of water heated, observed and expressed the results.
Kennison explained that her academic adviser has a grant to create outreach materials to teach meteorology in schools and she was able to do that in Florida and wanted to do the same back in Central Texas.
“This is for fun and to give back and get to talk to kids,” she said following two presentations.
“I think kids love science and that’s exciting. To see experiments that represent something in the real world that they don’t see in science class everyday (is exciting.) The kids asked good questions and had good observations about the world around them. They do a good job thinking through their predictions,” Kennison said.
“I like making kids aware that people that study the weather are also scientists. Exposing kids to different kinds of science is cool.”
Four years out of high school, the Harker Heights graduate has a math degree, has worked in environmental sciences and is now working on a career doing weather research.
“Don’t be afraid to try different things. I tried different things. I studied math and did different jobs before settling on meteorology. Just stay dedicated and open and you’ll find your way.”