Each year, the Washington State STEM Education Foundation presents four awards – the STEM Educator Award, STEM Volunteer Award, STEM Catalyst Award and the STEM Impact Partner Award – to individuals, organizations and/or project teams who have gone above and beyond by promoting the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education among the general public and/or the education system. During the 2013 year we were proud to recognize the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, CH2MHill Plateau Remediation, EngerySolutions and Lockheed Martin as award sponsors.
Last year’s awards were awarded to the following organizations and individuals.
STEM Catalyst : Tri- Cities Cancer Center –Recognized for their work-based learning and internship programs. The Tri-Cities Cancer Center not only opened their doors to real world STEM experiences for local students, they have played a pivotal role in the community sharing their experience with other medical and non-medical business. Additionally, The Tri-Cities Cancer Center supports educational programs for local educators, students and community — consistently demonstrating their willingness to mentor local students with interest in the medical fields. The Tri-City Cancer Center is an exemplary STEM learning partner, improving our community through supporting STEM education for local students as they explore careers in STEM fields.
STEM Impact Partner: PNNL Computer Science Team- Eric Bell and his colleagues have spent countless hours helping students and demonstrating the varied range of computer science careers, they’ve provided an internship for a local educator to support Career and Technical Education certification in the field of computer science and worked on the development of curriculum for a computer programing course that could be shared with any school throughout the state of Washington.
STEM Volunteer: Terrance Casey – for his efforts with Real World Design Challenge- an annual competition that provides high school students an opportunity to work on real-world engineering challenges in a team environment. He has worked for the last eight years supporting Kamiakan High School teachers and students on this project. Additionally, Terrance has provided mentorship opportunities for aspiring architects and tailored job shadows to local high school students.
STEM Educator: Paul Fraser and Chip Elfering, Ochoa Middle School 7th grade Integrated STEM Team – for their work in enhancing STEM education for public schools. Paul and Chip seek to enhance their students’ experiences by opening their classroom to local STEM professionals, coordinating STEM professional development opportunities for the 7th grade educators at Ochoa Middle School and being champions for STEM education in the community.