Cassandra Schneider

Tell us why you became a teacher

Originally, I set out to do research in chemistry, but then I took what was supposed to be a one-off, fun d-term class about science demos. I was hooked. That love for the demo class turned into me working as an Outreach educator for a museum, which was really awesome for a while, but then I was sad that I only had the kids for a short amount of time. I decided to go back to school for a teaching degree so I could have the best of both worlds-labs/demos and building sustainable camaraderie.

Tell us about your most memorable teaching experience

I was teaching a class of juniors the subtle art of titration. So we were doing a simple neutralization of HCl with a known concentration of NaOH. Somehow, every single lab group spilled their HCl. No one got hurt, but I was pretty frazzled at the end. The next day, the students came with a cookie cake that said, "Sorry for spilling hydrochloric acid everywhere." I would never have that wholesome moment in any other job.

What would you do with the $25,000?

I'd love to pay off the rest of my student loans from my Master's degree, and then I would love to do one of those travel professional developments. I think it would be very interesting to go to a lab to see green chemistry in action in real life or head up to the Arctic (or down to the Antarctic) to learn about the effects of climate change. In short, I'd use it to keep learning new things not only for myself, but to bring back to my students as well.