Grants Support the Future of STEM
September 1, 2017
By Breann Pendleton
It was through a scholarship awarded by AFCEA International that some California elementary school students got up close and personal with the intricate workmanship of the intrepid Albert Tangemann.
In 1922, Tangemann used scrap metal from World War II battleships to create a first-of-its-kind spiral staircase that provided access to the bottom of California’s Moaning Cavern. Ninety-two years later, one teacher’s AFCEA scholarship meant that 84 students from Sonora Elementary School could glean insights into how far construction technology has come and what allows speleologists to study deep, dark cavern secrets.
AFCEA International’s Educational Foundation offers scholarships to teachers who cultivate young students interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM. In addition to scholarships and grants, AFCEA provides awards for excellence and merit and the Leadership Forum.
Alia Katz, a sixth-grade earth science and ancient civilizations teacher at Sonora, applied some of her $5,000 AFCEA scholarship toward the cavern field trip. Each student received a hiking excursion guide, a gemstone kit and materials for a lab demonstration in a solutional cave, or one formed in soluble rock such as limestone, chalk, marble or gypsum. Students calculated the growth rate of stalagmites, learned about the engineering and technology behind mining flumes, and identified gemstones.
“This trip was an exhilarating interdisciplinary experience that incorporated the geological science of how caves are created,” Katz says.
More than the Moaning Cavern field trip was made possible because of the grant from AFCEA International’s Educational Foundation, Katz explains. “AFCEA’s grant helped me to complete my collegiate goals and helped me to obtain my first teaching position,” she says. “I will do my best to inspire others succeed against all odds in STEM education and careers.”
AFCEA offers STEM Teacher Graduate Scholarships to educators actively pursuing graduate degrees or credentials and licensure to teach STEM to U.S. middle and high schoolers. The competition-based scholarships range from $2,500 to $5,000 and are made possible by corporate contributions from Booz Allen Hamilton and ManTech International, the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation, AFCEA International and several of AFCEA’s regional chapters.
Additionally, the Educational Foundation has offered Gravely Grants to support STEM teachers in the classroom. In fiscal year 2016, the foundation gave more than $40,000 to teachers across the United States who provide innovative STEM learning opportunities.
It has been several years since Rachelle Pederson, who teaches technology classes at Frank Scott Bunnell High School in Stratford, Connecticut, received her scholarship award, a gift that keeps on giving. She received the grant in April 2012 and used the funds to support Bunnell’s Girls in STEM mentor group. A group of high school girls began the club to host STEM-based events for elementary and middle school girls to get them excited about science.
The Girls in STEM club participated in two STEM nights at local elementary schools and hosted the second annual Make-Her Fair event at Bunnell. The event is dedicated to inspiring elementary and middle school girls to feel passionate about STEM-related courses and eventual careers. More than 40 families and 300 students participated in a variety of hands-on STEM events.
Pederson knows how it can feel to be in a male-dominated field and says she is grateful for receiving the grant to support groups such as Girls in STEM.
“The smiling faces on the young girls when they build their catapults or when they hurl Barbie off the bleachers to measure her displacement in Barbie bungee jumping is absolutely priceless—and was made possible by AFCEA,” Pederson says.
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