Amazon Future Engineer Teachers to Vie for $25K STEM Prize Packages
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 02/20/20
Amazon's
Future Engineer program has just increased its STEM largesse. The
company will be granting prize bundles worth $25,000 to seven
teachers who currently participate in the Amazon
Future Engineer
program. The deadline for applications is March 12, 2020 at 3 p.m.
Central time. Applicants may be nominated
by somebody else in their school or district
or they can start
the application process for themselves.
The Future Engineer program
funds computer science courses at more than 2,000 high schools,
according to Amazon. The goal is to support students in underserved
and underrepresented communities. Amazon supports the work of
delivering full-year AP courses, both AP
CS A
(an introductory class) and AP
CS Principles,
particularly to those schools that haven't offered AP CS courses
before. The courses are made available in a blended format through
Edhesive
and Code.org.
Resources provided through the program include curriculum; teacher
support; professional development; career networking opportunities;
and access to AWS
Educate,
a portal for instructors teaching cloud technology to students in
K-20.
Seven
award recipients will be chosen from among the applicants, including
two high school teachers from the eastern United States, two from the
west, two in central states, and one from among teachers who have
received Amazon Future Engineer Robotics grants. Winners will receive
customized prizes worth more than $25,000. Those may include
donations for the classroom, STEM toys and activities and school
upgrades. They'll also receive all-expenses paid trips to re:MARS,
the company's artificial intelligence event for machine learning,
automation, robotics and space. That conference takes place June
16-19 in Las Vegas.
Judging
will be done by Scholarship
America.
The winners will be chosen based on their commitment to promoting
diversity and inclusion within CS education, a recommendation from a
school administrator and their own "compelling, personal
anecdotes about their school and students."
Award
winners will be named in April or May.
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.