Nancy Kreinberg was a pioneering science educator at Lawrence Hall of Science from 1973 to 19 . She graduated to the University of Wisconsin in 1959, where she majored in English. She moved with her two young sons to Berkeley, arriving in 1969 just as the Civil Rights Movement was ending, the Viet Nam War beginning, and the women’s liberation movement on the rise.
Motivated by her deep belief that the voice of the underserved and the underdog needed to be heard, Nancy Kreinberg’s work and personal life reflected her dedication to the equality of women and girls, and, more broadly, to equality and equity for all. To all her undertakings, Nancy brought her gift as a collaborative change-maker, who could catalyze and motivate her colleagues and friends and give voice to their collective visions and accomplishments in her many books and articles.
When she first arrived in Berkeley, Nancy worked as a freelance editor and writer, coauthored a book on the integration of children with disabilities into the regular classroom for Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development of San Francisco, and was instrumental in launching Editcetera, a Berkeley organization of freelance writers, editors and other publishing specialists. To this day, Editcetera handles referrals for its member freelancers and conducts workshops for aspiring writers and editors. In her spare time, she helped organize and facilitate “consciousness raising” -- the gathering of women in small, ongoing groups to share, question, and address their experiences as the subordinate “second sex” that took hold throughout the country in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
In 1973, Nancy landed the job she would hold until her retirement in 1995, director of special educational programs at the five-year old Lawrence Hall of Science. LHS, a public science center perched high on the hill above the Berkeley campus, features hands-on exhibits and multiple programs for teaching and learning science and mathematics. Her first major project was the establishment of a Math for Girls Class at the Hall. Building on that project, she created and led the EQUALS program, under the umbrella of which the LHS sponsored math workshops for girls and women as well as teaching technique classes for math and science teachers. Later she initiated Family Math, which developed strategies for family members to use in helping their children learn and love math. Over the years, the reach of Equals and Family Math, initially concerned with gender equity, was expanded to address race and class biases that hinder children’s math learning as well. As Kreinberg explained in a 1998 pamphlet coauthored with Patricia Campbell, “Questioning our own assumptions, and the solutions based on those assumptions, have moved us away from the idea of educational equity as a separate concept to the idea that high quality education must include all.”
In the words of her long-time colleagues Dr. Elizabeth Stage (Director of Lawrence Hall of Science 2003-2016) and Dr. Rita Levinson, “Nancy Kreinberg catalyzed the now-widespread public recognition that mathematics and science education are essential for all students’ opportunities and the now-conventional wisdom that teaching students in a cooperative, problem-solving environment (the design premise of Math for Girls and every subsequent program) prepares them for lives as parents, citizens, employees and leaders.”
Nancy’s creativity reached beyond the programs she nurtured at the Lawrence Hall of Science. The summer after launching Math for Girls, she and Dr. Levinson sent out an invitation: “Please join us at the Lawrence Hall of Science for a gathering of people interested in increasing the participation of girls and women in math/science/technical fields.” By 1975, that initial effort had morphed into the Math/Science Network, and Nancy served with Professor Lenore Blum as co-director of the Network. By the early 1980s, the Network became an independent nonprofit organization, supported by educators, scientists, parents, government agencies and educational foundations. Headquartered at the Math/Science Resource Center at Mills College and sustained by a major grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the program attained a national and international reach. Nancy helped plan the Network’s 30th anniversary celebration in November of 2004, at the Lawrence Hall of Science. By then, the Math/Science Network’s primary program, Expanding Your Horizons in Science and Mathematics (EYH), had produced hands-on workshops for well over half a million girls and young women at 100 sites around the country. In 2010, EYH received the National Science Board’s Public Service Award. Expanding Your Horizons conferencesare held annually on the Berkeley campus.