JANUARY 6, 2023 — The Lyons Central School District is excited to welcome Mrs. Jennifer Clancy as its newest MS/HS Science Teacher at the start of the 2022-23 school year.
Mrs. Clancy will be teaching Regents Biology and Gemini Biology (a college-level course offered through a partnership with Finger Lakes Community College) this year at Lyons. Gemini Biology hasn’t been offered in almost a decade at the District, and Mrs. Clancy is excited to be the one to bring it back for students.
“I’m one of those people that likes taking my students to a new level and challenging them,” Mrs. Clancy said. “I like to be challenged, so I like to challenge my students. And I want my kids to get excited about science.”
Mrs. Clancy comes to Lyons from Dundee Central School District, where she spent the last 17 years teaching science as well. Originally interested in practicing medicine, Mrs. Clancy was on a pre med track when she graduated from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in 1997 with her Bachelor’s Degree in chemistry and her Master’s Degree in physiology at University of Oregon in 1998.
With her father and sister both working as physician assistants, Mrs. Clancy thought she’d follow a similar path. She volunteered as an EMT for a decade and worked at the hospital lab at Geneva General Hospital before ever considering teaching. A coworker who was pursuing her teaching certificate ultimately led Mrs. Clancy to considering a career shift.
“I knew I wanted to help people and it was a neat experience, but it was a hard environment to be in,” Mrs. Clancy said. “I feel like I help more people doing what I am doing now as a teacher than I could have in the lab.”
One thing Mrs. Clancy is looking forward to most is bringing a new opportunity to Lyons students that will allow them to lead their own college-level studies and partner with the University at Buffalo to share their findings.
“We’re piloting a program to take kids to go sample water from a waterway, filter that down to the microbial level and then we’re going to take that bacterial DNA and sequence it,” Mrs. Clancy said. “These kids are going to be finding out what’s in these streams, and contributing to a citizens’ science project to figure out what’s going on in our waterways.”
Mrs. Clancy isn’t sure yet whether the project will be a part of the Gemini Biology course, or if it will be part of an optional Science Club for students, but by next spring, any student who participates will present their findings at a capstone symposium at the University of Buffalo in the spring.
“This is not a cookie cutter lab — it’s a springboard for bigger and better things,” Mrs. Clancy said. “That’s what I’m excited about: providing Lyons students with opportunities they never knew existed.”