Four Big Walnut High School science teachers honored with Governors Thomas Edison Award

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Big Wal­nut High School prin­ci­pal Steve Fujii recently received a let­ter stat­ing that four of his sci­ence teach­ers, Matt Wallschlaeger, Mike Smith, Nadine Adams and recently retired Wayne Moore, received a Gov­er­nors Thomas Edi­son Award for Excel­lence in STEM Education.

The Gov­er­nors Thomas Edi­son Award is sup­ported by a grant to The Ohio Acad­emy of Sci­ence from The Tech­nol­ogy Divi­sion of the Ohio Depart­ment of Development.

First estab­lished under Gov. Celeste’s Admin­is­tra­tion in 1985 as the Governor’s Awards for Excel­lence in Stu­dent Research, the name was changed to the Governor’s Thomas Edi­son Awards for Excel­lence in Stu­dent Research and in STEM Edu­ca­tion to reflect the direct involve­ment of the Edi­son Tech­nol­ogy Centers.

STEM Edu­ca­tion is both the mas­tery and inte­gra­tion of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­ogy, Engi­neer­ing and Math­e­mat­ics for all PK-12 stu­dents. It incor­po­rates sci­en­tific inquiry and tech­no­log­i­cal design through student-focused, project-based cur­ric­ula to develop skills of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, team­work and col­lab­o­ra­tion, cre­ativ­ity and inno­va­tion, crit­i­cal think­ing and prob­lem solving.

Wallschlaeger said 380 schools in Ohio applied for this year’s Governor’s Thomas Edi­son Award, but only teach­ers from 62 schools were selected.

“The cri­te­ria for the Governor’s Thomas Edi­son Awards requires a sci­ence fair for a num­ber of con­sec­u­tive years with 20 or more stu­dents par­tic­i­pat­ing, send­ing one or more of these stu­dents to one of the Academy’s 15 dis­trict sci­ence days, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in at least one more youth sci­ence oppor­tu­nity beyond the class­room,” Wallschlaeger said. “Big Wal­nut has a Sci­ence Olympiad team, where stu­dents pur­sue sci­en­tific inquiry and receive awards for sci­en­tific inves­ti­ga­tion; and we also used Envi­rothon because it’s a sci­ence and knowl­edge based competition.”

Wallschlaeger said as part of the award appli­ca­tion process Fujii wrote a let­ter list­ing mem­bers of the teach­ing team most respon­si­ble for stu­dent par­tic­i­pa­tion in STEM related activ­i­ties, and included doc­u­men­ta­tion of par­tic­i­pa­tion in the form of stu­dent par­tic­i­pa­tion and award cer­tifi­cates, pho­tographs, press clip­pings, pages of local, dis­trict or State Sci­ence Day pro­grams and copies of accep­tance or con­fir­ma­tion let­ters for activities.

“I think what fam­i­lies should know about our sci­ence cur­ricu­lum here at Big Wal­nut High School is that it’s col­lab­o­ra­tive and encour­ages hands-on, real-world sci­en­tific prob­lem solv­ing,” Fujii said. “Our stu­dents don’t just learn by read­ing out of a text­book. They become engaged by gath­er­ing data and mon­i­tor­ing projects.”

Fujii cited stu­dents involved in sci­en­tific inquiries that require as much, if not more, time out­side the class­room than in the class­room, like Kyle Davis doing bird research with assis­tance from Ohio Wes­leyan Uni­ver­sity ornithol­o­gist Dr. Edward Burtt, and Jesse Rines’ aqua­cul­ture research project located in the high school’s Ag Sci­ence Department.

“Stu­dents like Kyle and Jesse and oth­ers we have here are truly engaged in sci­en­tific inquiry,” Fujii said. “They’re not just learn­ing facts, they’re answer­ing ques­tions and solv­ing prob­lems; they’re learn­ing by doing.”

For addi­tional infor­ma­tion about the Ohio Acad­emy of Sci­ence go to < ohiosci.org >.

Posted by Gary Henery on Sep 5 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.