Palm Beach Post
Erich Landstrom, a Seminole Ridge High teacher, was just named a mentor to other teachers in a science-engineering education program.
By Carlos Frias
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
MEET YOUR NEIGHBOR: Erich Landstrom, 42,
Erich Landstrom, a Seminole Ridge High teacher, was just named a mentor to other teachers in a science-engineering education program. He taught a seminar at Santaluces High, as part of a day-long science and engineering seminar, on Feb. 19, called “Solar Max: Plotting sunspot cycles and global warming using TI graphing calculators.” (Jennifer Podis/The Palm Beach Post)
It’s OK with Erich Landstrom if you call him a science nerd.
After all, the sole reason he attended Wagner College in New York City to study physics was because the school had the country’s largest solar energy installment, plus a planetarium.
But his joy was not in theoretical science and math. What he loved most was figuring out how to apply science to engineering for the betterment of mankind. Nothing thrilled him more than when the local high schools sent fresh young minds to the planetarium to learn about science and Landstrom could teach them how they could use that science in the real world.
“That’s what I live for,” he said.
It’s a lesson he learned from his father, a U.S. Navy electrical engineer who worked on solar energy installations in Florida. It was then that he realized all science had to teach about improving the way humans live. Then, he fueled that interest as the head of the planetarium at the Miami Science Museum, where he luxuriated in teaching children about the role science played in their lives.
Finally, he brought the worlds together as a teacher at Seminole Ridge, where he was the 2010 national teacher of the year for the Southeastern Consortium for Minorities in Engineering. There, he brought the national program of teaching kids how to engineer solutions to today’s problems into the classrooms.
Last month, he was chosen as one of the country’s 13 new SECME mentors to help teach other teachers how to bring applied sciences to children.
Sometimes, students built devices to keep eggs from cracking when dropped off the roof of a building. Other times, he supervised students as they devised water-powered rockets. And the education was for children of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds.
“The only thing that matters is the grey between your ears not the color of your skin,” Landstrom said.
Who was an inspiration to you?
My dad was an electrical engineer, and my mother was a computer programmer, so there’s really no surprise there that I’d be into sciences.
That automated voice when you call Seminole Ridge High sounds awfully familiar.
Yup, that’s me. (Deepens voice) ‘Welcome to Seminole Ridge Community High School, home of the Hawks.’
Why is it so meaningful to you to not only be an applied sciences teacher, but a mentor to other teachers who teach this?
We know that if we train one teacher, we can reach 100 students. If you train 100 teachers, you can reach many thousands of students. That’s exciting.
What other hobbies to you have?
“I take taekwondo lessons together with my daughter (Lily, 8). I had a dream that we would both be black belts at the same time.”
