Tell us about yourself!

I’m Jaime Paredes, and I am teaching grades 3-8 STEM at Eriksdale School. I have been teaching for the last two years but I have worked with kids for the last 7. The reason I became a teacher is because I had a kid who I would teach magic tricks to, and she would always ask me to come be her teacher. I never thought I could be a teacher, but many kids motivated me to give it shot. 7 years later, here I am as a teacher and I have those kids to thank, so I have a tattoo that represents all the kids who helped me become a teacher. What I love most is the relationships I have with my students. I am the varsity volleyball coach at the high school, and I help run a NHL fantasy club at my school.

What is your favorite part of the Future Goals™program? How do you see STEM in the game of hockey?

My favorite part of Future Goals is how they use the sport of hockey to bring light to math and science concepts that kids might find boring but when introducing these concepts in the art of hockey it just makes it ten times more fun for them. Just by looking at the equipment the players use, I can find millions of ways that the engineers have used STEM to create the sticks, skates and protective equipment. It takes a lot of math and science research to be able to create the unreal sticks we have these days, and explaining that to the students is awesome because most of my students want to be hockey players so learning about the science behind it blows their minds!

If you played hockey, what position would you play and why?

I would play as a forward.  I got some good cellys under my sleeve!