Elena Jinzo is a veteran teacher and new teacher coach, who treasures her work with her students and fellow teachers.

Elena taught at the middle school level for almost twenty years. For five of those years she helped create & teach Newcomer classes filled with international children. An advocate for edtech, her students learned how to become proud tech-friendly digital citizens. Having minored in Art at SFSU, Elena shared ceramic, craft, and fine art lessons with her students.

As the Alta Loma Middle School Garden Club Advisor, Elena was responsible for designing, creating & harvesting the school garden/farm with student volunteers. They created a sustainable environment, friendly to native species, with organic & edible produce. The club learned a lot about nature, but, more importantly, they learn kindness, tolerance, respect and trust.

About eight years ago, enticed by the MakerSpace movement, EdTechTeam Summit ideas & Outdoor Education, Elena decided to leave the middle school to take a 5th grade teaching position at Skyline Elementary.

In the spring of her second year at Skyline she was honored to be selected to be trained in NGSS Project Based Learning by RAFT curriculum designers with funding from @Genentech through a project called Futurelab. Now science, space, and environmental education have become her focus & passion. Elena is proud to be included among a wonderful group of Blue Apple Teacher Authors, creating a PBL Project, The Dirty Truth.

“In this project, students learn about the importance of environmental protection, and about the wonders of Mars. They choose whether to support environmental protection or space exploration, and create a commercial to raise money for their cause.”

Elena loves teaching, her school, the staff, the community, and, of course, her students. She loves her classroom, the sharpened pencils, science experiments, the novels, PBL, gratitude journals, band performances, technology, bright flowers, her new Skyline Garden Club, “Gardening for Tomorrow” and getting to know a new group of children every year.

In addition, Elena has been trained as a Soil Advocate by the organization, Kiss the Ground, where she learned how to explain how healthy soil and regenerative agriculture could reverse climate change, and recently Elena has been working on a year-long Solutionary Science Unit that will empower children to be change-makers, themselves!