A Pitt Meadows teacher, enthusiastic about physics, is back in the news with another feather added to his hat.
Kelvin Dueck, the 25-year teaching veteran, who is with Pitt Meadows Elementary, has been awarded the 2021 Excellence in Teaching High School Physics award from the Canadian Association of Physicists.
“The universe is cool. If I do my job right, I just need to get out of the way, and the universe will be cool on its own,” he said upon receiving the recognition for his passion and dedication to science instruction.
In 2019, Dueck was recognized for his passion and drive for keeping students engaged in STEM learning, through the Prime Minister’s Awards for Teaching Excellence in STEM honour.
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Dueck adopted tablets for classroom work in 2004 and has been digitizing his lessons since, and posting them online. He also posts homework answer keys, extra practice questions and video clips, and now screen-casts his lessons on YouTube. He now has over 3,000 followers on his channel and gets over 680,000 views.
“Teaching physics, there are always moments when the kids will say ‘Wow, I didn’t know that’s how it works,’” he said. “If I am lucky, I can get every kid a bunch of those throughout the year.”
Dueck started out his career in teaching as a math instructor in 1997. He retired in 2003, and moved to the science department which quick-started his journey into teaching physics.
Dueck said he still enjoys watching students light up when they unravel a problem or see the universe from a new perspective.
“You can’t get enough of that,” he said. “You see that little light go on and they realize they are understanding the universe differently. You live for that. It is just the best.”
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