2018 STEM Award Recipients

Elementary STEM Awards Category

Elementary STEM Award Honorable Mention:

K-6 Inquiry-Based Learning Lab; Byron-Bergen Elementary School. This program reaches 500+ students and strives to provide multi-disciplinary opportunities for hands-on innovation.

Elementary STEM Award Special Recognition:

Elementary STEM Club Penfield Central School District , STEAM TOA. A district wide initiative that supported students in an after-school program.
Hillel STEAM Lab: Hillel Community Day School . A newly renovated STEAM lab for students K-7 offering a wide variety of Science, Technology, Art, Engineering, and Math activities to explore, tinker and create.
Maker Camp 2017: Honeoye Falls-Lima Primary School. A Maker Camp with 120+ students in grades K-5, students were able to plan, design, and create makerspaces related to the world and career exploration.

Elementary STEM Innovation Award:

Midlakes Makerspace: Partnering with the Local Public Library in Phelps, NY. STEM integration delivered in the Library and reaching 850+ students.

Middle School STEM Award Honorable Mention:

The Challenger Learning Center: Monroe #1 BOCES/Strassenburg Planetarium. A community resource, home grown, and more than 8,500 students participate annually.
ROC Future Cities: Rochester City School District. Incorporates students’ ideas into city planning.

Middle School STEM Innovation Award:

Middle School STEAM Days: In partnership with the Genesee Valley Educational Partnership Library Services.Offering a variety of interactive STEAM-based activities. A collaborative approach that included administrators, teachers, instructional aides, and clerical staff working together to engage students in creation, design, and innovation during the BMS STEAM Days. Students were exposed to the role of technology in many career pathways.

High School STEM Honorable Mention:

Penfield High School FIRST Robotics Team, Rolling Thunder. A partnership with Harris Communications and includes 40+ students, and 25+ volunteer mentors.
Tiny House Project: Geneseo Central School District. A community project to build a tiny house that would be donated to a homeless veteran in the Geneseo community.
Environmental Science/Forensics Class; Geneseo High School. Inspired by the Finger Lakes Youth Climate Summit, developed two (2) Climate Action Plans that focused on reducing paper waste, and implementing a composting program at school.

High School STEM Special Recognition:

NASA Project: Fairport High School. A partnership with NASA’s Johnson Space Center to inspire students through a real world experience where they design, build, and test materials for NASA.
Green Team Eco-Geeks: Honeoye Falls-Lima High School. Eco-Geeks is part of the Environmental Club and was established to educate the youngest students in the Honeoye Falls-Lima Central School District.
High School Technology Program: Midlakes High School . Technology courses designed to integrate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Students are designing and fabricating prototypes for equipment, furniture, and other to be used in classrooms and beyond.

High School Innovation Award:

Introduction to Environmental Science: Waterloo High School. Students enthusiastically took on the problem to find a solution. Through their own research and data collection the students had two (2) primary objectives: To study the environmental and health impact of a local landfill and to create a sustainable solution to the waste generated by the school district. Partnered with members of the scientific community.

Community STEM Award Honorable Mention:

Boys & Girls Club of Rochester STEM Program: The Boys & Girls Club of Rochester. The STEM program is designed to enable at risk, inner-city youth from low income households to explore different areas of science, technology, engineering, and math using the tools of experimentation and investigation.

Community STEM Innovation Award:

Optimax Explorer Post 6367: Optimax Systems. High School Students from school districts in Wayne and Monroe counties…engage in process of designing and manufacturing precision optics. The staff included current and former Optimax employees. The program was designed to provide career exploration in the field of advanced manufacturing. Opened up opportunities for student participants to work part-time at Optimax.