Every month, we award $500 worth of EdTech to a deserving educator through our EdTech grant program for teachers. The deserving recipient of our grant is able to use this $500 purchase any technology items from our store and use these items to enhance their classroom teaching and experiences of their students. Since we launched our grant program last summer, we’ve been fortunate to receive many excellent proposals and have learned a ton about the incredibly creative projects educators have in mind! With that being said, the latest recipient of our grant is no exception and we’re excited to introduce you to January’s awardee, Martha Lanaghen from MakerBolder, an afterschool, maker-focused organization in Colorado!
Martha works with students in all grades starting with Pre-K all the way up through high school. MakerBolder is an afterschool program through which students are given the opportunity to take part in hands-on STEM experiences. With a focus on both innovation and technology, Martha and a number of students have been able to take part in some pretty cool things thanks to MakerBolder. One of those events is the Rocky Mountain STEAM Fest—an annual showcase of STEAM projects for those in the Rocky Mountain region. They’re expecting over 100 projects on display this year and well over 5,000 people to be in attendance for the event on March 2 and 3.
MakerBolder is going to be taking part in the STEAM Fest for the sixth straight year. The event is designed to increase curiosity when it comes to STEAM education and to bring a diverse group of people together. In order to make the STEAM Fest even better this year, Martha applied for our grant in January and was looking for EdTech-related prizes that could be given out once kids completed the various activities and challenges on the day of the event. We loved the idea of incentivizing students to get creative and agreed with Martha that one of the best rewards for them would be some cool STEM tools.
So, as part of her award, we are going to be sending Martha and MakerBolder team four Ozobot Evo’s, one Ozobot Bit Starter Kit, and one Thirsty Plant Kit from Tech Will Save Us. They want to be sure that kids in attendance are trying all of the STEM opportunities that will be available to them and having the chance of winning a cool prize is a great way to inspire them! Of course, the challenges they’ll be taking part in are largely STEM-based, giving kids the opportunity to get creative and work on their skills. Plus, we also like the aspect of educating parents who will be in attendance on the possibilities and plethora of options for different EdTech their kids can use to learn with while they have fun!
On every grant application we receive, there is a section towards the end in which we ask applicants about the results they would like to achieve with the potential technology we would be awarding them. Martha’s response to this question really resonated with us and helped sway us to select her among the many excellent applications we received this past month. Since she has participated in five of these events already, she is very confident about what makes them good and has a great understanding about what children and parents can expect. Ultimately, she wants to use the activities at the STEAM Fest and the items she’s receiving from us to accomplish four main things.
First, Martha wants to encourage kids to visit all of the different types of exhibits throughout the day and really get them excited about trying something they’ve never done before. She believes that broadening their exposure to different types of science will help increase their overall interest in STEM. At the same time, we like it because we think it will help keep them inspired as they go from station to station and as they get older as well. She also wanted to ensure that students are rewarded with engaging and educational prizes for their work and creativity and we are very happy to be able to provide some of those prizes!
Besides that, Martha hopes to expose the overall community and all attendees at the Rocky Mountain STEAM Fest to the large amount of STEM tools their kids could be using to improve their 21st century skills. And, finally, she hopes to increase knowledge of how these tech tools can drive engagement in the classroom (or in afterschool environments) and lead to greater awareness surrounding the importance of STEM education.
In case you can’t tell, we think this sounds like an amazing event and program and we are very excited to have been able to provide some new technology for them to use! To learn more about MakerBolder and the Rocky Mountain STEAM Fest, visit the MakerBolder site. And, to learn more about our grant program or apply for February’s award, head to our grant page.