Frederick County schools, Battelle announce $50K in STEM Challenge grants

The Battelle National Biodefense Institute, a nonprofit Maryland company, and Frederick County Public Schools on Tuesday announced the recipients of $50,000 in teacher challenge grants for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education.

During a six-week open competition, teachers from elementary, middle and high schools developed and submitted 15 grant proposals. Of the 15, eight were selected as winners. Each of the eight selected projects will receive between $2,587 and $14,953 based on their proposed budgets.

Three of the winning grant applications came from elementary schools, one from a middle school and four from high schools.

The eight winning proposals came from the following schools:

• Carroll Manor Elementary – Building Bridges in Early Education
• Frederick High – Cadet Robotics: The Return of the Jedi!
• Glade Elementary – Robots and Building Blocks: A Study in Critical Thinking
• Governor Thomas Johnson High – WIN: Wilderness Inspires Naturalists
• Middletown High – MHS Science/Chemistry
• New Market Elementary – Brick Science: Building STEM Engagement in Early Childhood Learners
• Urbana High – Robotics at UHS
• West Frederick Middle – Hydroponics in the Classroom

The FCPS/BNBI STEM partnership was established in 2009 with the long-term goal of getting more students interested in and better prepared to major in math, the hard sciences or engineering in college. Since its inception BNBI has directly gifted $533,000 to FCPS, and BNBI staff has committed thousands of hours of time to assisting curricula development, classroom instruction and STEM activities outside the classroom.

Since 2006, BNBI has operated and managed the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, located on Fort Detrick, for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate as a federally funded research and development center.