Our mission is to connect diverse K-12 students and active researchers to engage in community-based education and research.

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We envision youth who…

Are excited and interested in socially-engaged critical thinking and research, recognizing their ability to produce valuable knowledge, and feeling individual purpose and community connection.

We aim to encourage youth to value…

Engaging in critical thinking and interdisciplinary research opportunities at any age.

Their own ability to produce valuable knowledge through collaboration with diverse researchers who lead with integrity and equally value the insight of these young scholars.

Fostering connections with their community while simultaneously building confidence in their individual purpose within their community.

Community

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Collaboration

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Engagement

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Interdisciplinary

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Integrity

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Community ✴︎ Collaboration ✴︎ Engagement ✴︎ Interdisciplinary ✴︎ Integrity ✴︎

We are driven by these same values:

Bringing together people of diverse backgrounds, skills, and interests to create inclusive research and learning environments.
Working with teachers and researchers to ensure multiple approaches and voices are heard.
Learning by doing; using approaches that emphasize hands-on, inquiry-based activities.
Demonstrating the value and interconnectedness of multiple disciplines in a way that does not privilege one over another, and illustrating how social concerns and science influence each other to promote real change.
Ensuring our research, as well as the character of our staff and volunteers, meets the highest standards of excellence.
Welcoming students, parents, educators, researchers, and community partners with diverse interests and backgrounds to ensure our engagement with others is both expansive and inclusive.

Meet the team

Katrina completed her Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology at the University of Minnesota.
She develops and manages SASSAk12’s programs and volunteers, is expanding its presence in the community through extensive networking and partnerships with researchers and institutions, and is charting the future of the organization. As the parent of two wonderful daughters, Katrina has been volunteering in schools since her oldest started pre-school. Empowering young students, especially young women, by inspiring curiosity and active learning is a passion for her and she is thrilled to be a part of SASSAk12.
Find Katrina online: Website

The Board

As a founding member of SASSAk12, Chris has and continues to help guide the trajectory of the organization. As a social studies teacher he provides guidance on aspects that relate to social studies content.
Chris has taught fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grades over the last 19 years in the Osseo School District. Traveling, reading, boating, biking, and building projects are among his favorite hobbies. He is passionate about helping students understand multiple perspectives and learning ways to keep them engaged. Chris works to include higher level thinking, art, peer interaction, literature and technology to enhance student learning.

As a founding member of SASSAk12, Beth has and continues to help guide the trajectory of the organization. As a science teacher she provides guidance on aspects that relate to science content.
Growing up Beth was fortunate to live in many different places as a daughter of a Naval officer. She has lived in South Carolina, Italy, Michigan, Guam, Virginia, Florida, and Minnesota. In 1993, she received her Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education from the University of Florida and married the man she met in Italy. They moved to Minnesota, and she began her teaching career in the Osseo School District. Beth has taught third-, fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grades, and Gifted Education during her 22 years of teaching. During her teaching career, she earned her Masters in Integrating Technology in 2003.

Phyllis recently retired from the Institute of Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota, where she connected with diverse groups within the community. She has graciously connected SASSAk12 with individuals who have offered interesting and useful insights. A gifted writer, she has offered to assist SASSAk12 in our grant writing efforts, while also editing and writing for Open Rivers: Rethinking Water, Place & Community.

Nicole is an accountant for Polaris and has generously offered to advise SASSAk12 on budget and finance matters. She is also a parent of two K-12 students within one of the primary districts we serve and offers feedback about the programming from a parent’s perspective.

Kat is connected to many people involved in education and outreach in the Twin Cities metro and continually helps us to make connections with others that can advise or collaborate with SASSAk12. She is a well-established archaeologist who can help guide the trajectory of the archaeology programming. Additionally, she has been a strong advocate for the organization within the Anthropology Department at the University of Minnesota, and as a co-founder of the Heritage Studies and Public History program, she is helping to develop a partnership with SASSAk12.
Kat was recently recognized as a Dean’s Medalist (2024) for her outstanding work to give voice to many people and communities who have been impacted by past destructive practices of archaeology, including efforts to repatriate archaeological remains and materials of Indigenous communities.

Carrie started out in SASSAk12 as a volunteering graduate student from the Anthropology Department at the University of Minnesota, where she received her Ph.D. in 2021 studying gelada monkey genetics and reproductive behavior.
Her interdisciplinary background in conservation biology and biological sciences allows her to contribute to the development of SASSAk12 teaching modules.
Now, as a member of the board (2024), she continues to help guide the growth of the SASSAk12 community by assisting in ongoing and expanding engaging educational opportunities.
Her current work centers around managing the Molecular Anthropology labs that strive to bring attention to the experieces of populations that have been marginalized or misrepresented in history.

Our Story

2015 - 2016: In the beginning...

Beginning as an informal K-12 educational outreach initiative with nine graduate students, four undergraduate students, and twelve parents volunteering as classroom leaders, 2015 marks the start of SASSAk12. Born of a mother and full-time graduate student’s passion for her children, education, and research, along with K-12 educators’ desires to bring more hands-on learning to the classroom, in our first year we reached around 600 sixth-graders within the diverse Osseo School District at a cost of only 59 cents per student.
2016 - 2017: Growth

Our second year saw rapid growth! We presented to 1300 sixth- and seventh-graders in the Osseo School District and expanded to reach 30 high school students at Gordon Parks High School. Our community of volunteers doubled and diversified, coming from Anthropology, Ecology Evolution and Behavior, and the Earth Sciences at the UMN and contribution to module development and social media initiatives.
2017 - 2018: Expanding our community...

Year three was marked with expanding the program to work with over 5,000 students from the Osseo School District, developing collaborations with White Bear Lake’s alternative learning center, and building an entire elective on biological anthropology and archaeology. Volunteers from Macalester College and St. Anthony Falls Laboratory (SAFL) joined our community and Executive Director, Katrina with other education and outreach specialists at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
2018 - 2019: Spreading the word

We published! The SASSAk12 team and collaborating K-12 educators published a chapter about the SASSA in the Classroom program in a new book: Public Engagement and Education: Developing and Fostering Stewardship for an Archaeological Future (Ed. by Katherine Erdman, 2019). We expanded our target audience, working with elementary school students from the St. Anthony-New Brighton School District to provide a hands-on summer program to see what it is like to be on an archaeological dig!
2019 - 2020: Learning to adapt

Similar to many, our year started strong with the SASSAk12 community providing hands-on learning experiences to eager students! We adapted to the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdown by providing online opportunities to meet scientists with diverse backgrounds and interests. We also took steps to invest in our future by developing a Youth Engaging in Research Program (YERP) in which students could conduct their own research with the support of mentors from around the country.
2020 - 2024: Reaching out when Locked Down

COVID hit us hard, and yet somehow also presented us with opportunities to reach out to even more distant and diverse communities! We developed a symposium at the American Association of Physical Anthropology conference in 2021, focused on “Connecting with Youth Scholars in the Era of COVID-19.” This allowed us to share in what we and other educators (and anthropologists) had learned across the globe while facing the challenges of reaching students during the COVID lockdown, with posters contributed by Joel Abdella and Samantha Porter We also developed learning modules for students within native Alaskan communities of the upper Alaskan Peninsula through collaborative consultation with the Council of Katmai Descendants, Katmai National Park & Preserve, and members of the Village of Perryville.
Looking to the future...

Now on the other side of COVID (and a PhD defense) we are eager to reintroduce SASSAk12 programming in schools! We are in the process of communicating with local educators about these efforts, while also taking the opportunity to improve and expand our teaching materials. We are also welcoming new members to our community with new graduate student volunteers who are excited to reach out and spread the word about our work, both in-person and online!