Nanih Waiya Attendance Center has been awarded a $1K grant to be used in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) education development.
The grant was sponsored by the Tennessee Valley Authority in partnership with Bicentennial Volunteers Incorporated; STEMx and Battelle also contributed to the grant project and process.
The grant program offered teachers a chance to apply for funding up to $5,000 for projects that explored TVA’s primary areas of focus: environment, energy, economic and career development, and community problem solving.
This year’s grants are remarkable because this is the first year funds were available to all seven states served by TVA.
TVA received more than 240 grant requests and awarded over $580,000 in grants. Other ssissippi counties who received funds were Itawamba, Lee, Lowndes, Lafayette, Tippah and Union.
Nanih Waiya Attendance Center’s grant proposal was written by school librarian Rachel Nance.
The funds will be used to purchase two 500-piece sets of engineering planks that students in grades K-12 can use to practice real world STEM skills, such as computational thinking and the engineering design process.
STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. Rather than teach the four disciplines as separate and discrete subjects, STEM integrates them into a cohesive learning paradigm based on real-world applications.
Though the United States has historically been a leader in these fields, fewer students have been focusing on these topics recently. According to the U.S. Department of Education, only 16 percent of high school students are interested in a STEM career and have proven a proficiency in mathematics. Currently, nearly 28 percent of high school freshmen declare an interest in a STEM-related field, a department website says, but 57 percent of these students will lose interest by the time they graduate from high school.
