Joshua Sneideman is a middle school science teacher with 10 years of teaching experience. Prior to his Einstein Fellowship, he taught at a private school in Irvine, California. Sneideman has taught mathematics and science for fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. In addition to his recent role as grade level coordinator, he enjoys coaching varsity tennis and basketball.

Sneideman has international teaching experience in both Costa Rica, where he pioneered a project-based learning curriculum, and Trinidad and Tobago, where he taught the interdisciplinary “Watershed Program” developed by the National Green Ribbon Award-winning Radnor Middle School of Pennsylvania.

Sneideman holds a Master of Arts degree with a concentration in Educational Leadership from Framingham State University and a Bachelors of Arts in Geology and Environmental Science with a minor in Spanish from James Madison University. Prior to beginning his career as an educator, Sneideman worked as a hydro-geologist, mapping and remediating groundwater contamination along the east coast of the United States.

In 1998, Sneideman received the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Grant in support of his undergraduate research conducting a cladistics analysis of an extinct fossil to help resolve the clade at the base of familia iguanidae.  In 2007, he received the U.S. Department of State CAFTA-DR Small Grant in support of his efforts to create an intercollegiate environmental congress to enhance environmental education for both public and private schools in Costa Rica.  Now in its seventh year, this organization has educated thousands of students around their motto “think globally; act locally.” Sneideman was honored to be awarded the peer recognition award at the Lincoln School in Costa Rica.

Sneideman recently published a lesson for National Geographic,  has an article in SCOPE, the newsletter for the NAGC Curriculum Studies Network, on student centered learning, and has authored two TED-Ed original animated shorts on analogies for geologic time and the guide to the energy of earth.

Sneideman’s teaching philosophy centers around constructivist principles utilizing project-based learning environments. He credits his initial teaching experience as an outdoor educator for providing him with many of the techniques he uses in creating a positive student centered learning environment. Sneideman is motivated by his intense desire to improve the quality of the environment at a local, national, and international level through education. “I became an educator to have the greatest environmental impact possible. As a hydro-geologist cleaning up oil spills, I was simply a band-aid on a much larger problem. I switched careers as I came to realize education was the best way to affect a generational shift in environmental consciousness.”

Sneideman and his wife can be found playing at the park with their two young daughters during their free time. He enjoys crewing sailboat races and kayaking the flat waters of Virginia’s many amazing rivers.