Mercer Is. Teacher Is Star Of `Today'

Mercer Is. teacher

is star of `Today'

MERCER ISLAND

Jim Minstrell is attracting attention again.

National attention. On television.

Friday morning an NBC ``Today'' show crew spent three hours filming the physics teacher's Mercer Island High School class.

NBC science correspondent Robert Bazell will use Minstrell's class to demonstrate new science teaching techniques in an upcoming show, Minstrell said.

Minstrell, who has devised a teaching strategy that incorporates a student's misperceptions into the lesson, is completing a three-year, $375,000 grant program through the James McDonnell Foundation to turn his techniques into a teaching model. The grant expires in August, but Minstrell hopes the foundation will extend it.

Students enter the classroom with their own ideas about the physical world, Minstrell said. Some are correct, and some are not. Students retain a better understanding of physics concepts when they develop experiments that test their own perceptions.

Fame is no stranger to Minstrell. The 28-year veteran teacher was named the state's outstanding science teacher in 1985 and received a Presidential Award for Excellence from the National Science

Foundation.