2025 SCL Ambassadors
Spanning the country and culminating at NABT, our national cohort of educators spent the year transforming story-driven films into classroom practice — designing innovative lessons, leading national workshops, and cultivating the next generation of curious, confident thinkers.
Watch the Webinar
Our Ambassadors showcased their free, classroom-tested biology and environmental science lessons in our capstone webinar on January 8, 2026.
Topics covered included: DNA replication, evolutionary tradeoffs, biotechnology in conservation, hypothesis generation, and cellular communication.
You can view and download all the lessons featured with a free educator account.
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Meet Our 2025 Ambassadors
From Alabama to West Virginia to Idaho, these exceptional educators bring deep expertise, creativity, and a passion for connecting students to real-world science. They’ve partnered with us to bring our award-winning films into classrooms—designing impactful lesson plans, leading professional development, and fostering a vibrant community of practice.
Minu Basu
AP Biology Teacher at Dougherty Valley High School in San Ramon, CA
Rebecca Brewer
AP Biology and 9th Grade Biology Teacher at Troy High School in Troy, MI
Christine Girtain
Director of Authentic Science Research at Toms River High Schools North and South in Toms River, NJ
Renee Haines
AP Biology and Dual Enrollment Biology Teacher at Martinsburg High School in Martinsburg, WV
Dan Vanden Heuvel
Biology, AP Biology, and Botany/Zoology Teacher at Wood River High School in Hailey, ID
Cohort Lead: Lee Meadows
Former Executive Director at Alabama STEM Council & Retired Professor in School of Education at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, AL
Minu Basu
SAN RAMON, CALIFORNIA
"[My] students were really engaged and they connected with the stories that the scientists were saying, and they understood the content. [The students] were able to conceptualize what happens at the molecular level, because that is something that the students will not be able to see. And there was overall more joy from the learning."
Beyond the classroom, Minu leads initiatives like the Science Alliance program, where high school students mentor younger peers in STEM. She also guides students in competitions like the USABO and Science Bowl and supports leadership development through Speech and Debate. Deeply rooted in her school community, Minu is committed to fostering scientific curiosity, critical thinking, and confidence in the next generation of learners and leaders.
Rebecca Brewer
TROY, MICHIGAN
“I'm really enjoying the camaraderie. I love being with a group of people who are passionate… I look forward to the friendships and sparking ideas off one another.”
MiniOne Systems, the Fred Hutch Cancer Center, and BSCS. She also serves as a Teacher Ambassador for the Society for Science to promote research and innovation education in high school classrooms, and she is the Michigan Director for the National Association of Biology Teachers Outstanding Biology Teacher Award Program.
Connect with Rebecca @brewerbiology.bsky.social
Christine Girtain
TOMS RIVER, NEW JERSEY
“Every student has said, ‘worth my time.’ Yes, keep [these films] for next year. And I don't get that with everything."
Christine is building an equitable K–Industry STEM pipeline and creating global learning opportunities for students—from DNA barcoding projects to designing Martian greenhouses with peers in Belize. Her students collaborate across borders and disciplines, and she connects classrooms with partners like Cold Spring Harbor Labs, the U.S. Army and Navy, and the IEEE. As an international presenter and advocate for agricultural literacy, she works with organizations like Nourish the Future and the National Corn Growers Association to expand access to STEM education and inspire the next generation of innovators.
Renee Haines
MARTINSBURG, WEST VIRGINIA
"SCL content takes science and makes it real. It showcases the thought processes. And experimental design, the questions, the humor, and the real lives of scientists, and anytime we can make science real for students, we can make students think they're capable of doing science."
At the heart of Renee’s teaching is a commitment to creating a safe, encouraging environment where students are empowered to take risks and push their limits. Inspired by her mentor’s belief in student potential, she focuses on building strong relationships and instilling confidence. Her classroom emphasizes scientific literacy and real-world application, using methods like CER (claim, evidence, reasoning) and source analysis to prepare students to think critically, communicate clearly, and make informed decisions beyond the classroom.
Dan Vanden Heuvel
HAILEY, IDAHO
“Students definitely respond [to the films]... It really draws them in and creates those personal connections to the ideas.”
Dan Vanden Heuvel is a Biology, AP Biology, and Botany/Zoology teacher at Wood River High School in the mountain town of Hailey, Idaho (home to the Sun Valley ski resort). He is originally from Wisconsin and earned Bachelor of Science degrees in English and Conservation Biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After college, he worked as a national park wilderness ranger, environmental educator, National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) instructor, and youth outreach program coordinator before heading into the classroom as a science teacher in 2012. He also earned a Master of Educational Technology (MET) degree from Boise State University. Dan loves to “tell the story” of science and engages students with inquiry-based activities and labs that allow them to experience a sense of discovery, whether the students are learning about human evolution, genetic engineering, or stem cells. He’s even known to perform original songs about topics like the electron transport chain. His classes participate in several authentic research projects, such as the Wolbachia Project through Penn State University and Planting Science through the Botanical Society of America.
Guiding the vision behind the Ambassador program is veteran science educator and leader:
Lee Meadows
BIRMINGHAM, ALAMBAMA
“Science teachers want their students to see why science matters to them. The SCL films are perfect for that! And the SCL Ambassadors are the allies teachers need for seeing how to bring these powerful stories into their classrooms."
A teacher at heart, he has taught high school chemistry, physics, and physical science; college chemistry; and many teacher education courses, especially science teaching methods. He has written and spoken across his career on the teaching of evolution in the Deep South and is the author of The Missing Link: An Inquiry Based Approach for Teaching Evolution to All Students and co-author of Making Sense of Science and Religion: Strategies for the Classroom and Beyond.
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Lessons, NABT 2025 & Real-World Impact
In addition to their lessons, our Ambassadors led workshops, presented at national conferences, and built a community of practice with their fellow educators across the country. Their work culminated in several NABT 2025 presentations along with a capstone webinar, where they shared their insights, resource tools, and success stories with the broader teaching community.
Our 2025 Ambassadors developed comprehensive lessons for the following films:
Christine Girtain:
Decoding Ancestral Knowledge
Dan Vanden Heuvel:
How to Kill a Superbug
Phages have been battling bacteria since the dawn of time. Evolutionary biologist Paul Turner explains how phages could be harnessed to fight the rising threat of antibiotic resistance, and it’s not what you think!
Minu Basu:
The Most Beautiful Experiment
Matt Meselson and Frank Stahl share the story of their groundbreaking experiment from 1958 that definitively showed semiconservative DNA replication.
Rebecca Brewer:
Charting an Original Path
Rebecca Calisi Rodríguez’s research on pigeons, like her life, is one of charting an original path. Her experiences as a Mexican-Italian-American woman, professor, artist and mother have provided her with fascinating and unusual perspectives to study the biology of parental behavior. And in so doing, she is redefining what it means to be a scientist.
Renee Haines:
Saving the American Chestnut
We look to the story of the American Chestnut as an example of how scientists are trying to bring a once-abundant tree back from near extinction through genetic engineering. We also consider the budding genome-editing technology CRISPR Cas-9 as a more precise tool with great promise but also great uncertainty. Can we do it and should we do it?
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