WILLISTON, N.D. (AP) - A new K-12 grant program rolled out recently by Statoil is designed to help ensure educators continue their investment in science, technology, engineering and math education, popularly known as STEM.
In a partnership with the Northwest North Dakota Community Foundation, Statoil allocated $50,000 to create the Statoil STEM Education Fellowship program. Of that, $35,000 will be invested into educators this year through a competitive application process.
“It’s been good to work for a company like Statoil that sees STEM as being a large part of sustainability for the oil field but for all industries within the Williston Basin,” Kent Evans, Statoil’s Bakken Regional Manager, said. “Communities are a big part of who Statoil is. We believe investing into educators will pay dividends for students, schools, communities and everyone involved.”
Five applications were received for the first year and four were selected that best supported the grants professional development guidelines, according to Ward Koeser, board president of NWND Community Foundation. Each of those received funding, with the largest getting $15,000.
“This STEM fellowship program really provides educators the resources they need to pursue self-designed professional learning experiences,” Koeser said. “The fellowship resources can be utilized in unlimited ways and we see that with the recipients here today.”
The Williston Herald (https://bit.ly/2kLVZ0O ) reports that Regie Hill of Alexander Public School received $15,000 to implement a new Project Lead the Way program, which will facilitate conversations about environmental sustainability. Watford City Public School math teacher Derek Roemmich will utilize his $11,500 grant to focus his Project Lead the Way program for engineering design.
Two educators from Williston were among those selected.
Michael Koehn, science teacher at Stony Creek Middle School in New Public School District 8, received $5,000 for media equipment that students can use to input data to track weather, but can also be used for broader scopes like time-lapse photography, he said.
“The applications are only going to be limited to the creative mind behind it,” Koehn said.
Amanda Skinner, math and physics teacher at Williston High School, will use the $5,500 grant she received to attend NASA Endeavor’s STEM Leadership Certificate program.
“This program is specifically for STEM educators,” Skinner said. “I hoping this will help give me the special considerations to teach this subject. In doing this, I can develop my own curriculum and use my own tools to the best of my abilities.”
This year, Skinner has been leading a robotics class at the high school and the elective opportunity brought 30 students eager to develop a new skill.
Given the success of the pilot group, there is hope to see continued growth and interest in the grant in coming years.
“If we can light that fire in our students, a lot of them have a lot more potential than they even realize themselves,” Koeser said. “I’m excited to see the results.”
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Information from: Williston Herald, https://www.willistonherald.com
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