O&R Plans to Award $50,000 to the Area’s Best Classroom Stem Projects
Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc. (O&R) plans to award $1,000 STEM Classroom Grants to as many as 50 educators at schools (Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 12) and youth groups for the 2023-2024 school year in communities located within O&R’s service area.
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. The STEM Education Advisory Council will award grants to creative classroom projects designed to improve, advance, and enrich student learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
STEM students at Haverstraw Elementary School here are collaborating on a project with students from the school’s band to manage the level of ambient sound in the school area in the vicinity of the gym, the cafeteria, and the band room. Here, they are fabricating sound-proof panels to strategically deploy around the affected areas. Once the panels are ready to install, the students will activate sound meters to measure the success of their stem project.
Each applicant may request up to $1,000 to be used toward purchasing materials and resources for their project. The resources must 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 or built. Ideally, the successful proposal would focus on the study of electricity and electricity production, natural gas exploration, renewables, and clean energy.
Past winning proposal topics have ranged from drone crop monitoring and robotic development to hydroponics and 3-D printed solar vehicle construction. To see the STEM grants in action, please click here.
Last year, O&R awarded grants totaling nearly $44,626.92 to support over 50 creative, cutting-edge classroom STEM projects. Over the past eight years, O&R has awarded 327 STEM Classroom Grants totaling nearly $292,000. Those grants ranged from $329 to $1,000.
O&R President and CEO Robert Sanchez said, “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 are sure to inspire learning for a brighter future.”
The application process is now open. The STEM Classroom Grants Program application can be found here. The proposal application must be received by O&R no later than March 31, 2023. The grants will be awarded in May.
About Orange & Rockland
Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc. (O&R) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc., one of the nation’s largest investor-owned energy companies. O&R is a regulated utility that 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.