Carmel Elementary Educator Named STEM Teacher of the Year

Staff Report

Carmel Elementary School teacher Merry Willis has been named the Museum of Aviation National STEM Academy’s STEM Teacher of the Year for 2014-2015.

Willis was nominated by the school’s 2013-2014 principal, Dr. Keith Bryant. Both the school and Willis will receive a $1,000 prize for the achievement.

Willis is responsible for building Carmel Elementary School’s STEM program from scratch two years ago. Over 1,200 students in grades kindergarten through 5th participate in the STEM class once a week for the entire school year.

“Merry infuses reading into all of her STEM lessons as well as embedding career awareness by discussing careers associated with a given task or lesson,” Dr. Bryant said.

Three judges carefully reviewed the applications that were submitted. Judges were Dr. Katie Thompson, a STEM director at West Georgia RESA; Edwin Mills, who is a master STEM teacher in Bay County, Florida; and Amy Hudnall, who is the deputy director of the Georgia Center of Innovation for Aerospace.

Melissa Spalding, director of Education at the Museum of Aviation visited Merry Willis’ classroom and took a tour of Carmel Elementary.

The award prizes will be given at the fourth Georgia NASA STEM Day Conference for Educators this weekend at the Museum of Aviation in Warner Robins.

The Georgia NASA STEM Day Conference for Educators is a professional development training program for K-12 educators featuring NASA STEM activities, demonstrations, and presentations by NASA education specialists and other NASA program members. The STEM Teacher of the Year announcement will be awarded during the luncheon in the Century of Flight Hangar at the Museum of Aviation. Prize money was donated by Jeff Smith Automotive Group.

The Museum of Aviation National STEM Academy is a part of the Museum of Aviation Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization that raises money to support the Museum of Aviation, the second largest aviation museum in the U.S. Air Force. The Foundation hopes to continue the STEM Teacher of the Year contest and open it up to more grades in the coming years.

For more information, visit their website.