Courtesy of WCTV:
By: Emma Wheeler | WCTV Eyewitness News
LOWNDES COUNTY, Ga. (WCTV) — Teachers in South Georgia are heading back in to the classroom, thanks to a grant from Valdosta State University.
Over the last thirteen years, Valdosta State University has hosted teachers from all over South Georgia to participate in the Math Science Partnership Grant. However a loss of federal funding has put the grant at risk of ending for good.
This week in Hahira, elementary school math and science teachers from across the South Georgia region were brought together to collaborate on new ideas for the classroom.
“Kids change, schools change, school funding changes, how teachers are trained changes” said Brian Gerber, faculty member at Valdosta State University. “So we need to stay ahead of that curve.”
Teachers learned new hands on activities. The goal is to best equip students to succeed in STEM.
“Our national security depends on how well we are teaching science, technology, engineering, mathematics to our students. These kids today are going to be the leaders of our country tomorrow,” Gerber said.
This year the $1 million Transforming STEM Teaching and Learning Grant provides continued education for 120 students over two years. As students grow up in a new digital age, teachers said it’s important to keep up with the best ways for students to learn.
“As a student, we were not hands on as much. Now students are coming in to the classroom needing that hands on experience, wanting to see something that’s going to create a memory in them forever,” said Edward Mobley, special education teacher at Horizon Academy.
Over the last 13 years the grant has helped more than 1,000 teachers and their students.
“Down in South Georgia we are very limited on a lot of resources,” Mobley said. “We’re not the mega cities, we’re not the big cities that have the funding, that has the activities that students can naturally go to.”
With federal budget cuts, officials said this could be the last summer the project is put on, leaving some local teachers to ask what’s next.
“Coming here and I’m getting ideas to do with the standard, I’m getting the knowledge I need,” Mobley said.
Valdosta State University officials said they are currently searching for alternative funding sources in order to keep the grant project going.
