WonderWorld is an initiative put together by Elizabeth McGregor Jacobides (Candidate for PhD at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge; MA Education, Stanford University; BA Drama and Human Biology, Stanford University), an expanding group of similarly minded creative scientists, invaluable volunteers, and an advisory board of science professionals, academics, and parents.
Elizabeth McGregor Jacobides
After seven years working first as classroom teacher and then as a dedicated primary science teacher at Collegiate School in New York City, Elizabeth moved to London and began working as the educational director for a science education non profit.
In this role she saw science pushed to the periphery by the heavy test preparation for maths and literacy during the critical young ages when children make decisions about what they are "good" at and what excites them enough to pursue through secondary school. Beyond that she heard from students and parents alike that the high-stakes nature of their education was limiting their appetite for exploration and stunting their creative growth.
As such, she decided to leverage her training and experience to research and gather together the best practices for primary science in pursuit of a curriculum for teaching science reasoning and resilience through “making” projects in concert with the "working scientifically" learning objectives of Key Stage 2 and 3. The result is WonderWorld Science.
ADVISORS
Katerina is a Reader at the Psychoanalysis Unit, Psychology and Language Sciences Division, University College London, a research affiliate at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, and the leader of KatLab.
Dan is an entrepreneur and technologist who specializes in designing social and communications software. His past projects include Ad.ly, Newroo, and Chill; he is currently working on Namesake, an online community for professional conversations.
Michael is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School where he holds the Sir Donald Gordon Chair of Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Marina co-founded and leads Ashoka U, working with campuses to embed social innovation as an educational focus and core value of the university culture. She blogs monthly to share her expertise in startups and social entrepreneurship.
Fati is director of technology and telecom research at Newton Investment Management, a unit of Mellon Financial. Living in London and acquainted with the British primary school system as a parent, she lends both urgency and encouragement to the work of WonderWorld by consistently checking in on progress and pushing for new areas of development.
University Senior Lecturer in Science Education, Mark leads the University of Cambridge participation in the EU-funded project 'Tinkering: Contemporary Education for Innovators of Tomorrow,' which aims to implement the Tinkering pedagogy at a European level.
Sophia is a Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at Imperial College London where she leads the Yaliraki Group of researchers, among a great many other things.
