Reporter Volume 26, No.21 March 23, 1995

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Bureau Staff
She is known nationally for her work in the development of
"amusement-park physics" as a teaching tool and co-authored an
amusement-park manual for students competing in the International
Physics Olympiad hosted by the U.S. in 1993. March 9, Barbara
Wolff-Reichert traveled to Washington, D.C., to receive a Presidential
Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching.
	Hers is one of the 1995 presidential awards presented to the
top 50 high-school science teachers at a White House ceremony. The
awards are given in recognition of what John Gibbons, assistant to
President Clinton for science and technology, calls "extraordinary
accomplishments in the classroom as a teacher."
	The award, which carries a $7,500 grant to Wolff-Reichert's
home school, was established by the National Science Foundation in
1983 to identify, recognize and reward outstanding teachers of science
and mathematics in grades K-12. Such teachers serve as models for
their colleagues and form a leadership core to help advance the major
reform movements in these disciplines. Every year, the presidential
award is given to 200 teachers -- 50 elementary and 50 secondary
science teachers and 50 elementary and 50 secondary math teachers.
	Wolff-Reichert, a doctoral student in the UB Graduate School
of Education, teaches physics in Livingston High School in Livingston,
N.J., from which she is on leave while completing a doctorate in
learning and instruction.
	She holds a Master of Arts degree in Teaching Physics from
Yale University and is graduate assistant in UB's Buffalo Research
Institute on Education for Teaching, where she co-teaches a field
experience and seminar for pre-service teachers and supervises student
teachers.