Mission Viejo Teacher Makes Top Grade : Education: Hands-on science instruction and a creative high school classroom atmosphere earn Roy Beven a prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence.

Roy Beven, a physics teacher at Mission Viejo High School, is known across campus for his unusual way of teaching science.

Beven doesn’t give written tests. Instead, every semester students build “Rube Goldberg machines,” whimsical contraptions designed to perform a simple task in the most complex way possible. But by constructing what Beven says usually looks like a “comic mousetrap,” each student learns to measure energy conversion.

“I moved from paper-and-pencil tests to performance and communication,” said Beven, 43, of San Juan Capistrano. “They have to be able to communicate what they’ve learned and present it visually and verbally, as well as written. . . . It’s more real-life. It’s growth. Not many of us take paper-and-pencil tests every day. We perform.”

It was Beven’s hands-on style of teaching that earned him a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching in 1994, announced this week.

“It’s the most prestigious award for a teacher because it’s the only one that comes from the White House and from the President,” said Kathleen Holmay, spokeswoman for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching.

Thousands of teachers are nominated for the annual awards by colleagues and go through a rigorous screening process. Only 100 high school science and math teachers nationwide are chosen each year for the awards. Beven is one of two 1994 winners from California.

Beven “has the ability to engage his students. He has the ability to foster curiosity and generate excitement among students,” said Vance Mill, California’s coordinator for the awards.

Beven said he enjoys seeing his students have fun while learning about science, especially at the end of the semester, when they bring to class their Rube Goldberg creations, constructed from common household items.

Mission Viejo High School Principal Duffy Clark said Beven is well-known for providing a creative classroom atmosphere.

“He engages the kids and builds on their natural curiosity. He’s like a guide who helps them through the discovery process of how things work,” Clark said. “Once the kids are let loose in this environment, science becomes real for them. It jumps out of the textbook and into their lives. In that sense, they can use it and apply it to their own lives.”

The National Science Foundation, which sponsors the competition, awards the winners $7,500, to be used for teaching equipment. In addition, the winners spend a week in Washington, where they attend a State Department dinner and meet the President and Hillary Clinton.

But Beven and his family will not be going to Washington this year because his wife, Michele, was recently diagnosed with cancer. Beven said he was able to arrange with the National Science Teachers Assn. to postpone his trip until next year so that his wife and two children, Lauren, 13, and Drew, 11, may also attend.

“I’m a little disappointed we can’t go (this year). But her health is more important,” Beven said. “It would be such a hollow award without my wife and my children there.”

Beven, a graduate of UC Irvine, previously taught at Canyon High School in Anaheim and Irvine High School. In 1990, he began two years of work on a special research project for the National Science Foundation called Explorations in Science, in which he developed computer simulation laboratories for middle schools that allowed students to visualize such things as descending into a volcano and how a building would respond to an earthquake.

In 1992, Beven joined the teaching staff at Mission Viejo High School, where he has been teaching physics, earth science and physical science.

In his 20 years of teaching, Beven said, the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching is the greatest honor he has received. But it’s his students who make him look forward to each day.

“The real energy is engaging with my students,” he said.

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(B1) MAKING THE GRADE: Mission Viejo High School physics teacher Roy Beven has won a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching, one of only 100 teachers nationwide to be so honored. B9

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Roy Beven: Honored Teacher

Age: 43

Home: San Juan Capistrano

Family: Married, two children

Education: Bachelor’s degree in physics, UC Irvine, 1973

Career: Currently associate director of the California Science Project in Orange County; physics teacher, Mission Viejo High School, for past three years; physics teacher, Saddleback College, for three years; physics teacher, Irvine School District, for 11 years; worked two years on national science research project; physics teacher, Orange University School District, for four years

Honors: 1994 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching; 1994 Exemplary Science Teacher Award from UCI; 1984 California Mentor Teacher

Technique: Gives students hands-on science experience, teaches them to communicate what they’ve learned and be able to present it orally, visually and in writing

Attitude: “I’ve had 20 years of playing teacher. I’ve approached the notion that there is something to be learned every day, to evolve.”

Source: Times reports; Researched by CAROLINE LEMKE / Los Angeles Times