Purpose
The EPSD Education Foundation teacher Innovator Grant program offers teachers the opportunity to bring STEAM-Powered innovation to their East Penn classrooms. Through this program, the Foundation has the ability to enrich, extend, and deepen the educational experiences of East Penn School District students with an emphasis on science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM), the five pillars of critical thinking, creativity, innovation, and problem-solving.
2024-2025
Jefferson Elementary School was awarded a $5,000 grant for their Jefferson Farmers’ Market proposal that involves building a greenhouse on school grounds to grow fruits and vegetables for student consumption, a student-led stand at the Emmaus Farmers' Market, and providing food for families in need.
Joshua Dietz and Nicholas Haja of Jefferson Elementary were awarded a $2,500 grant for their Sphero-Indi Coding Cars for Elementary STEM Awareness Grade-Level Projects and Clubs proposal to bring coding into their first grade classrooms to foster creativity, critical thinking skills, and problem solving!
Nicole Gillen of Eyer Middle School was awarded $2,500 for her proposal Sublimation: Turning the heat up on creativity! Where students will use cutting edge technology to learn all about a unique printing process and its real world applications.
Justin Phillips of Alburtis and Shoemaker Elementary was awarded $1,000 for his prospal Piecing Together Tomorrow where students will be using a Cricut to explore their dream careers and represent them by creating custom jigsaw puzzles.
Ryan Peters of Willow Lane Elementary was awarded $1,000 for his proposal Creative Sound Engineering which will support the Willow Lane Songwriting Club by providing a classroom recording studio for the students to produce and mix their original music.
Brenden Davis of Eyer Middle School was awarded $1,500 for his proposal Transforming EyeTV from a Stagecoach to a Tesla that will help update and modernize the EyeTV Studio to enhance student engagement and quality of the daily student-run production.
Heather Moser of VESPA was awarded $1,000 for her project Stimulating the Senses Service Learning Project that will create a hands-on learning experience for VESPA students by having them plant, nurture, and distribute herb plants within the East Penn community as random acts of kindness.
Brandi Blose, Lauren Krause, and Melissa Yerger of Lower Macungie Middle School were awarded $2,500 for their project ELA Untethered: Using iPads to Enhance Teaching and Learning in the ELA Classroom to help bring their students' writing to life with updated classroom technology.
John Cari, Alice Boulrice, JoAnn Welsko, and Meaghan Buck of Lower Macungie Middle School were awarded $2,500 for their project Voices of Creativity: Empowering Students Through Podcasting and Poetry that will provide students with upgraded microphones and equipment to allow students to create high quality podcasts.
Alon Hogan of Emmaus High School was awarded $1,000 for her innovative project Enhancing Nutrition Education and Creativity in Culinary Education where students will use a Vitamix blender and iPad to enhance nutrition education in Creative Foods and Positive Well-Being courses.
JoAnn Welsko of Lower Macungie Middle School was awarded $500 to her project Engaged Readers: Using iPads to Model Annotation and Inspire STEM Curiosity to bring upgraded technology into her classroom.