Frederick County Public Schools and Battelle Announce $50,000 in STEM Challenge Grants

FREDERICK, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Battelle National Biodefense Institute and Frederick County Public Schools today 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.

“FCPS students and teachers benefit annually from these significant STEM grants,” FCPS Superintendent Dr. Terry Alban said. “I look forward to viewing the completed projects, which often spark interests in STEM career paths.”

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

“I’m always amazed by the proposals we receive from the FCPS teachers,” said BNBI President, Dr. George Korch.” They are thoughtful, creative and convey a real passion for finding new ways to teach STEM. We are hopeful that the students and teachers will again be able to showcase their projects as they did before the pandemic.”

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.

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 Fort Detrick, for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate as a federally funded research and development center.