National Geographic Honors Colvin Run Elementary Teacher

A new school year in Fairfax County is less than two weeks old, but one teacher at a Vienna elementary school has already been honored on a national platform.

Connie Boltz, a teacher of 20 years currently serving as a kindergarten teacher at Colvin Run Elementary School, was recently named National Geographic’s Classroom Ideas Educator of the Week. The prominent publication recognized Boltz’s unique and effective methods for connecting multiple core subjects and promoting critical thinking skills through an all-encompassing S.T.E.A.M. (Science, technology, engineering, art and math) project.

She had students at Colvin Run create their own S.T.E.A.M. “glyphs,” or works of art, meant to resemble what they love about any or all of those five core subjects. Students were also encouraged to reflect which character traits they value most through their artwork.

“Using the visual arts as the tool of understanding, the project aims to help students identify their goals and interests, make global connections, and find relationships between new and familiar information,” read NatGeo’s education blog.

Boltz told the magazine she noticed an improvement in her students’ critical and creative thinking skills after completing the project. She noted that 94 percent of participating students employed an analogy in their work of art, while 89 percent were able to visualize their artwork before beginning to put it together.

Check out the full blog post highlighting Boltz and her recent project here.