Tabor Academy educator, Karl Kistler, was recently awarded a Lemelson-MIT Excite Award. This award is given annually to a select group of educators across the country who have applied to receive a Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam grant for the following school year and have been selected as a finalist. Award recipients participate in invention education learning opportunities as part of an all-expense paid trip to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for the Lemelson-MIT Program’s annual EurekaFest, a multi-day invention celebration in mid-June. Drew Tanzosh, physics, will be representing Tabor at EurekaFest.
“Our engineering students are eager for the opportunity to create an underwater ROV to assist with data collection for our marine science classes. The collaboration we are planning with Tabor’s Marine Science department provides us an opportunity to create a tool that can assist with research of our local waters, a project with real consequences to our town and to Tabor’s growing curriculum and research. To be able to share ideas and learn from MIT educators, and other educators interested in invention, is an opportunity we just could not pass up,” said Kistler.
Educators are selected for this award based on their capacity to lead a year-long, open-ended invention project with students at their school. At EurekaFest, Excite Award recipients meet and are inspired by current InvenTeams, teams of high school students, teachers and mentors that received grants of up to $10,000 each to invent technological solutions to real-world problems. Tanzosh will see the InvenTeam projects, learn more about the InvenTeam experience and attend hands-on workshops and discussions led by MIT professors about invention-unique technological solutions to real world problems.
“Excite Award educators who attend EurekaFest leave the event prepared to ignite an interest among high school students in science, math, engineering and invention,” said Leigh Estabrooks, invention education officer from the Lemelson-MIT Program. “They gain new techniques to empower their students through problem solving and encourage a sustainable culture of invention in their school and community.”
Kistler, Chair of the Science Department at Tabor Academy, initiated the InvenTeam application process in the spring of 2016 and will be invited to submit a final application that will be due in September for the InvenTeam grant after Tabor’s attendance at EurekaFest. Kistler and Tanzosh will work with the students [and mentors] throughout the summer to finalize Tabor’s grant application. The team will also reach out to community members with expertise in fields related to the problem that the students plan to address through technological invention for insight and guidance on how their invention can best serve the community.
A prestigious panel of judges composed of educators, researchers, staff and alumni from MIT, as well as former Lemelson-MIT award winners, will assemble in the fall and select the final InvenTeam grantees.