Modesto Tamez: Teacher Institute Staff

Modesto Tamez has been a science educator at the Exploratorium for more than twenty years. His responsibilities include training middle- and high-school teachers to use activity-based science, helping coordinate TI’s Leadership Program, and training experienced science teachers to support new science teachers.

"Cheap science" is Modesto’s motto and, in that spirit, he creates new curriculum involving mostly inexpensive or free materials. He has written articles on science pedagogy and is co-author of Math And Science Across Cultures, a book on the everyday math and science of cultures around the world. Modesto has also taught science methods courses for several universities in the Bay Area.

Before joining the Exploratorium, Modesto was a science teacher for almost 18 years. His experience included K-8 activity-based science. He also taught lab science in Spanish to newcomer Latino students. Modesto received his training at the University of Illinois in Chicago, where he majored in geology and elementary education. He is an avid amateur photographer with a passion for view cameras and pinhole photography. He also loves music and has taught the science of sound at the San Francisco Symphony, the physics of dance at the San Francisco Ballet, and the science of opera at the San Francisco Opera Company.