Consuelo Morales is a Research Associate with the CREATE for STEM Institute, where she serves as the Curriculum and Teacher Support Lead for the Health in Our Hands (HiOH) project. With over nine years of experience in secondary science education at the middle school, high school, and university levels, Consuelo brings a strong background in biological sciences to her work. She holds a master's degree in public health (' 09) and a Ph.D. in secondary science education (' 16) from the University of Michigan. Before joining CREATE, Consuelo was a lecturer in secondary science methods and a seminar and field instructor for undergraduate preservice teachers at the University of Michigan. Her dissertation focused on a middle school teacher's experience with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) as they revised and implemented a health unit on the effects of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use on the brain.
At CREATE, Consuelo's work aligns with her passion for investigating how teachers and students engage with three-dimensional learning, which the NGSS supports. In her role on the HiOH project, funded by the Science Education Partnership Award through the National Institutes of Health, she leads innovative teacher professional development initiatives that empower 6-12 grade teachers to implement NGSS-aligned, project-based, community-connected science curricula. Her responsibilities include building teacher professional learning communities for teachers, developing curriculums, and creating assessment tasks and rubrics that support three-dimensional, NGSS-aligned learning. Notably, she has contributed to the development of NGSS-aligned middle school units such as "What Controls My Health?" and "How Can Looking for Thrills Make Me Miserable?" as well as high school units including "The Mystery of the Monkeyflowers" and "How Similar and Different Are We?"
Bilingual in Spanish, Consuelo has a deep love for travel. She lived in Spain for five years, which allowed her to explore Europe extensively. In the summer of 2016, she traveled to Panama to collaborate with the Panamanian education sector on developing a national curriculum inspired by NGSS principles.
