February 9, 1995: Vol26n16: In Top Ten of Science Teachers

Science teacher in Buffalo Public School 18, who has dedicated much of
her energy to economically disadvantaged and emotionally disabled
children, has been cited as one of the top 10 science teachers in the
United States by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).
	Elsa Salazar Cade of  St. Catharines, Ontario, a member of the
clinical faculty of UB's Buffalo Research Institute on Education for
Teaching, was nominated for the honor by faculty in the UB Graduate
School of Education. Cade was selected as a finalist from among more
than 85 candidates nationwide for the competition sponsored by Shell
Oil Company. The winner, who will be announced at the association's
annual meeting in March, will receive a cash award of $10,000.
	Cade's nomination was strongly supported by members of the
faculty of School 18 where she teaches seventh and eighth grade
science; the Buffalo Board of Education; several faculty in the
Niagara Falls and Williamsville School Systems who have worked with
her on education projects, and one of her former students, who said
"the knowledge and values she taught me...will be with me forever."
	In addition to her full-time work as an elementary school
science teacher and clinical mentor of science teachers, Cade is a
research scientist in the field of entomology and spent part of the
Fall 1994 semester in Africa conducting field studies of insect
behavior.
	She recently co-authored a paper on cricket mating, calling
and searching behavior that was published in the journal Animal
Behavior. Cade has also illustrated research reports in the Florida
Entomology Journal on Insect Behavioral Ecology and in the book
"Comprehensive Insect Physiology and Biochemistry" (Pergamon Press,
Oxford).
	She is the author of research on the assimilation of students
with severe emotional disturbances or behavior disorders into the
general education science classroom, an analysis that developed out of
her participation in a recent ethnographic research effort by a team
from UB.
	The researchers found that subjects with behavior problems
scored higher on the district test than other groups of students with
similar problems -- a sign, they found, of the integrity of the
science presented to these students -- and that there was not a single
disciplinary citation of any of the students studied while they were
in science class.
oted for her skill as a teacher
	of students with emotional disorders, Cade was nominated by
Buffalo Public Schools in 1992 to be a science mentor for "Science for
the Handicapped," a National Science Foundation project at UB.
	For this project she worked with other science mentors
toJdevelop a series 
of "hands-on" activities that were presentedJtoJ
eight teams of special-educationJand science teachers during an
80-hourJteaching enhancement program. Her contributions to the project
were so outstanding that her nomination for the current award was
accompanied by a letter of support signed by her fellow mentors and
teacher participants.
	In nominating her for the NSTA award, UB Professors John
Cawley and Rodney Doran of the Graduate School of Education said that
Cade "brings a sensitivity to the classroom that reflects her own
Mexican-American ethnicity and her own awareness that students can
overcome the adverse effects of substandard economic conditions."
	Of the 685 students in School 18, located on Buffalo's lower
West Side, 72 percent are members of an ethnic or racial minority --
half of Spanish ethnicity. The Aid to Dependent Children rate in the
school is 92 percent.
	A native of San Antonio, Texas, Cade attended the Edgewood
District Schools described in Jonathan Kozol's groundbreaking book,
"Savage Inequalities." She said that despite the disparity in the
educational opportunities available to her and to students on the
city's more affluent north side, "I had parents and teachers who
cared" and that they made an enormous difference in her life.
ut her back door she
	says, "lay the Texas grassland of mesquite trees, rattlesnakes
and grasshoppers" -- a habitat that fascinated Cade and one in which
she first met the Texas field cricket she has studied with her husband
for the last 10 years.
	Cade graduated from that San Antonio's Memorial High School
and holds a bachelor of science degree in elementary education with
honors in biology and Spanish from the University of Texas, Austin.
She taught elementary school in Austin from 1975 to 1980. She received
a master of arts degree in educational administration from Niagara
University in 1989.