Cultivating STEM’s Roots

Challenger Center—the Washington D.C.-based non-profit founded by the families of the astronauts whose lives were lost in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and dedicated to offering dynamic, hands-on exploration and discovery opportunities to students around the world.

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society comprising nearly thirty-thousand individual members from 91 countries and one-hundred corporate members. Together; they announced that 2023’s Trailblazing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Educator Award will be presented to Caroline Little, Aymette Medina, and Taylor Whisenant.

The three teachers and their respective schools will each be awarded $5,000. Additionally, the trio of educators will receive free access to Challenger Center STEM programming, a trip to Washington, D.C.—where they will be honored at the 2023 AIAA Awards Gala—and an invitation to attend a future space launch.

The Trailblazing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Educator Award celebrates K-12 teachers who give their utmost to inspire future generations of explorers and innovators. The three winners, who come from schools across the United States, were selected from 51 nominations—the significant number of which underscores educators’ remarkable and unwavering efforts to foster student interest in and impart understanding of the STEM disciplines.

Caroline Little: 6th–8th grade science teacher at Visitation School (Mendota Heights, Minnesota). Ms. Little has taught science and world languages for twenty-years, creatively framing complex STEM principles within comprehensible lesson plans and consistently inspiring future generations of scientists. Ms. Little’s students recently presented their research pertaining to lunar crop growth during a NASA Space Food webinar. Ms. Little is a Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Teacher Innovator Institute Fellow and an advisor for several national STEM-based educational programs.

Aymette Medina: high school teacher at Odyssey Academy Galveston (Galveston, Texas). Throughout her decade as a professional educator, Ms. Medina has made it her mission to afford her students opportunity to glimpse their individual potentials within STEM fields. Recently, she engaged her students in three demanding educational enterprises: the NASA TechRise Challenge, the International SeaPerch Space Exploration Challenge, and the SystemsGo Rocketry Program. Ms. Medina predicates her lesson plans, in part, on Challenger Center and AIAA educational materials, and takes her students on field trips carefully devised to correlate the didactic aspects of their educations to real-world STEM applications. Ms. Medina is a Space Foundation teacher liaison and an ambassador for both Space Explorers and SeaPerch (Robonation).

Taylor Whisenant: K-12 STEAM teacher at Athens Renaissance School (ARS) (Athens, Alabama). Ms. Whisenant, who specializes in special education, particularly autism spectrum disorders, champions egalitarian access to quality STEM curricula. During her first year at ARS, Ms. Whisenant developed a robotics program comprising eight FIRST Robotics teams spanning the K-12 age groups. The program has since grown to 14 teams. Ms. Whisenant is a University of Alabama at Huntsville Alumni of Achievement Honoree and a FIRST Inspire the Future Educators Recognition Program Honoree. She is also a program delivery partner for FIRST LEGO League.

Challenger Center president and CEO Lance Bush stated: “With educators like Caroline, Aymette, and Taylor, STEM experiences are not only introduced to students, but they are brought to life. They go above and beyond to ensure that students of all backgrounds are given the opportunity to see the world of possibilities that STEM careers offer. We are thrilled to award each of these teachers with the 2023 Trailblazing STEM Educator Award.”

Notwithstanding a worsening deficit of properly skilled and qualified personnel, the U.S. aerospace and defense industry continues to lead global innovation. If America is to maintain its historic and hard-won hegemony in the aforementioned sectors, U.S. educational institutions must assertively and effectively promote STEM curricula to students unaware of or ignorantly indifferent to such.

AIAA executive director Dan Dumbacher remarked: “These three Trailblazing STEM Educator Award winners are awesome educators! It is our honor to recognize them with this award. We believe teachers are invaluable to their communities, bringing their passion for learning to inspire their students. They are enabling a robust STEM-literate next generation. Together, they are shaping the future of aerospace.”

The trio of winners will be recognized on 18 May at the AIAA’s 2023 Awards Gala at Washington D.C.’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The evening will acknowledge and celebrate the aerospace sector’s most influential and inspiring individuals.

FMI: www.challenger.org