Battelle and FCPS Award $50,000 in STEM Challenge Grants as BNBI Continues its Support of Students

FREDERICK, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--At their August 5 meeting, the Board of Education celebrated the Battelle National Biodefense Institute’s award to Frederick County Public Schools of $50,000 for science, technology, engineering and math challenge grants.

During a 6-week open competition, teachers from elementary, middle and high schools developed and submitted 16 STEM grant proposals. Of the 16, nine were selected as winners. Each of the 9 selected projects will receive between $600 and $10,305, based on their proposed budgets.

“The support of BNBI helps to fuel the passion of our FCPS students and teachers for STEM education. The creativity of this year’s winning proposals will energize students,” said FCPS Superintendent Dr. Theresa Alban. “I’m so proud of our winners, and I’m looking forward to seeing how this year’s projects will impact STEM education across Frederick County.”

Five of the winning grant applications came from elementary schools, two from a middle school and two from high schools. The nine winning proposals came from the following schools:

Butterfly Ridge Elementary
Crestwood Middle (two winning proposals)
Lincoln Elementary
Myersville Elementary
New Market Elementary
Thurmont Elementary
Tuscarora High
Urbana High

“We are delighted to once again be able to make this year’s teacher challenge grant happen despite the ongoing impact of Covid-19,” said BNBI President Dr. George Korch. “We really worked hard in partnership with FCPS to make sure this important STEM effort did not get canceled.”

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 $483,000 to FCPS, and BNBI staff has committed thousands of hours of time to assisting curricula development, classroom instruction, and STEM activities outside the classroom.

The Battelle National Biodefense Institute, LLC is a nonprofit Maryland company. BNBI is a wholly owned subsidiary of Battelle. Since 2006 BNBI has operated and managed the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, located on Ft. Detrick, for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate as a federally funded research and development center.