PEARL RIVER- Orange and Rockland Utilities (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 2024-2025 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 purpose. 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).
Each teacher-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 exploring energy via robotics and drones to drone crop monitoring and robotic development to hydroponics and 3-D printed solar vehicle construction. Last year, O&R awarded grants totaling $49,313.57 to support 54 creative, cutting-edge classroom STEM
projects. Over the past nine years, O&R has awarded 419 STEM Classroom Grants totaling $341,313. Those grants ranged from $185 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 online at https://www.oru.com/en/community-affairs/teachers-students. The proposal application must be received by O&R no later than March 31, 2024. The grants will be awarded in May.
