Apply Now: O&R To Award $1,000 Each To Best Classroom Stem Projects
Teachers and youth group leaders! How often do you have a chance to make a dream come true?
We want to hand you up to $1,000 to develop and implement that outside-the-box classroom STEM project you’ve long dreamed of. You know the one: your favorite, the dream project. It’s that project you know will engage, entertain and inspire your students as much as it will educate, guide and train them.
Orange and Rockland Utilities (O&R) is awarding $50,000 in grants to support innovative classroom projects and inspirational teacher-and-youth-group led professional-development initiatives in O&R’s service area. Your outstanding proposals should focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Past winning proposal topics have ranged from drone crop monitoring and robotic competitions, to hydroponics and 3-D printed solar vehicle construction.
Last year, despite school and youth group lockdowns, O&R awarded grants totaling $36,233.72 to support 39 creative, cutting-edge classroom projects that focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Over the past six years, O&R has awarded 236 STEM Classroom Grants totaling nearly $210,000. Those grants ranged from $175 to $1,000.
O&R President and CEO Robert Sanchez said, “In the face of difficult classroom challenges, last year’s STEM grant recipients demonstrated admirable resilience and unwavering commitment to their students’ education. They truly are our classroom heroes. Their proposals were impressive in scope and application and will inspire learning for a brighter future.”
Get your proposals ready because the competitive application process is now open. Click the link to view a video about the program. https://bcove.video/2Vqop6v
What’s eligible?
O&R will make STEM Classroom Grants of up to $1,000 each to educators at schools (pre-kindergarten through grade 12) and youth group leaders for the 2021-2022 school year in communities located within O&R’s service area. That covers Rockland and parts of Orange and Sullivan counties in New York, and parts of Bergen, Passaic and Sussex counties in New Jersey.
Creative classroom projects designed to improve, advance and enrich student learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics will win the $1,000. Grants will be awarded based on a review by the O&R STEM Education Advisory Council, a panel of educators and engineers assembled by O&R expressly for this process.
Resources requested should be integral components of a well-planned classroom project/lesson plan and important to its success. O&R seeks educational proposals that range from formative ideas that explore learning concepts to fully tested models that are ready to be adopted and disseminated. Ideally, the successful proposal would focus on the study of electricity and electricity production, natural gas exploration, renewables, and clean energy.
The STEM Classroom Grants Program application can be found online at https://www.oru.com/-/media/files/oru/documents/community-affairs/stem-application.pdf?la=en
The application must be received by O&R no later than March 31, 2021. The grants will be awarded in May.
These third-graders in Jennifer LaBier’s class at Stony Point Elementary School are hard at work on a STEM-oriented project funded by O&R’s STEM Classroom Grants program. This is a 2017 file photo. It was taken before COVID-19 precautions such as masking and social distancing were instituted to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
About O&R
Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc. (O&R), a wholly owned subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc., one of the nation’s largest investor-owned energy companies, is a regulated utility. O&R provides electric service to approximately 300,000 customers in southeastern New York State (where its franchise name is Orange & Rockland) and northern New Jersey (where it’s Rockland Electric Company) and natural gas service to approximately 130,000 customers in New York.