Education Office: Marge Bardeen

I am Manager of the Education Office. My background is in mathematics. I have a B.A. from the University of Minnesota with coursework for a secondary educational certificate in mathematics from Elmhurst College in Elmhurst, IL. I was a parent volunteer for many years helping students learn math. I have taught at the middle school level and served on the Board of Education of Glenbard Township High School District #87. I also served on the Board of Trustees of the College of DuPage.

The Fermilab Education Office is home to our K-12 programs. Our team of creative, dedicated people have a wonderful time developing and running K-12 education programs in strong collaboration with teachers and physicists. Working behind the scenes, we allow teachers to teach . . . most of the time . . . and physicists to do research . . . most of the time . . . so that their time working together on education programs is maximized. As a result we have a wealth of programs that utilize Lab resources to meet educators' needs.

In 1982 at the invitation of Leon Lederman, several of us started K-12 progams at the Lab. For many years I was the program lead and my colleague Stanka Jovanovic managed the group, keeping us on the straight and narrow.

Our programs were originally supported and run by Friends of Fermilab, a 501c3 that we established, and that I led under its newer name, Fermilab Friends for Science Education until May 2008. Now, the programs are conducted by the Education Office, but we still rely on FFSE support to develop new programs and provide the little things that make everyone feel welcome at Fermilab.

I have a wonderful family—husband Bill, a particle physicist, and grown children, Chuck, a atmospheric scientist, and Karen, a high school chemistry teacher. In the rest of my life I enjoy reading, gardening, looking for my ancestors, traveling and more.

Marge's CV - Innovative programs - Program Impact