Science center staff to visit area schools

APS grant will expand project to local districts

Two Yuma school districts will benefit from a grant expanding science education to rural Arizona.

The Arizona Science Center received a $1 million grant from the APS Foundation at the beginning of July to fund its Rural Communities Expansion Project.

The project will be coming to both the Crane School District and Yuma Elementary School District One, said Brian O’Malley, of Gordon C. James Public Relations. O’Malley said the districts were still finalizing agreements and were not yet ready to release the names of schools that would be involved.

The project was first launched by the center in 2012 to provide STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) professional development opportunities to K-8 teachers in rural Arizona schools. APS Foundation has partnered with the Arizona Science Center since the beginning and has granted more than $2.4 million to the program.

The APS grant will sustain the professional development of K-8 teachers in STEM subjects for the next five years. The program will expand into Cochise County as well. Currently the program operates in Prescott, Humboldt, Holbrook, Sedona, Winslow, Cottonwood, Oak Creek, Verde Valley, Florence, and Saddle Mountain.

The project brings Arizona Science Center staff into schools around the state, where they deliver tailored professional development programs for teachers, training for administrators, and student programs featuring hands-on STEM projects and STEM Extravaganzas — full-day or evening events filled with various hands-on science activities and often comprised of multiple schools.

For more information on Arizona Science Center’s educator programs, please visit www.azscience.org/ educators. Get social! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with the latest Yuma happenings. Follow us at Twitter.com/YumaSun and Facebook.com/ YumaSunNews