LSU Alumna Morgan Decuir: First-Generation College Graduate and STEM Ambassador

Ensuring Student Success for All

LSU alumna Morgan Decuir from Erwinville, Louisiana, is a first-generation college graduate. She leads STEM education for kindergarten through fourth grade at Caneview K-8 in Port Allen in the same community where she attended elementary and middle school. In 2022, she won the Shell Science Lab Regional Challenge, bringing more STEM learning opportunities to her community and to Louisiana students.

“The Shell Science Lab award has allowed me to purchase supplies to teach the Next Generation Science Standards and provide more hands-on learning opportunities for the five different grade levels that I teach,” Decuir said. “My district has invested in many different technology tools, such as Bloxels, Bee-Bots and Indi, which help students develop the critically important computational thinking skills they can build on in middle school, high school and college.”

Decuir was a student at LSU from 2011 to 2015, at which point she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education. She then went back to LSU from 2016 to 2018, graduating with a Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction. Now, she’s leveraging the expertise she gained at LSU to engage elementary students in using new technologies, thus broadening the talent pipeline to some of the most high-paying careers from an early age.

“I teach my students there are different ways to solve a problem,” Decuir said. “When a sequence of code doesn’t work, I’ll say, ‘Let’s think of a different way.’”

‘Finding a way’ defines Decuir. She participated in the LSU Summer Scholars program, a bridge program for minority students, and served as an LSU Ambassador.

“It set me up for success,” Decuir said. “Being an LSU Ambassador really helped me learn how to do things for my school and for my community; how to present and represent.”

“In my classroom, I have a sign that says, “Today is a great day to learn something new!” I enjoy implementing new and innovative technology tools in my classroom that provide students with hands-on opportunities to learn computational thinking skills. I enjoy seeing my students show they’re learning in different ways while being creative and collaborating together.”

Morgan Decuir, STEM teacher at Caneview K-8 in Port Allen, Louisiana, and LSU College of Human Sciences & Education alumna