Creston teacher honored with STEM Teacher Award

On Friday, Creston Community High School teacher Maggie Arnold was awarded the STEM Teacher Award, earning the title of Southwest Iowa STEM Teacher of the Year and $3,000, half for personal use and half for her classroom.

This award is given by the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council. Southwest Regional Manager for the STEM Advisory Council Joni Ehm explained what the program does for schools.

“The Iowa Governor’s Advisory Council has created an increased interest and student awareness in science, technology, engineering and math,” Ehm said. “It’s a partnership between Iowa educators, companies, legislators and students, and provides Iowa students with possibilities of careers in STEM.”

Arnold has been working as the CAST (Communication and Service Technology) instructor at the high school for six years. According to the high school website, “The Union County Development Association partners with our school district to provide outstanding learning experiences, connecting CAST students with local businesses in solution-minded think tanks. Student projects are then based on real-world challenges and problem solving with support from the Iowa Authentic Learning Network.”

Arnold is proud of what she has accomplished in the classroom.

“I think the thing that I’m most proud of is the fact that this class has totally become project-based learning,” Arnold said. “The students use their passion to decide what project it is that they work on and be a part of, so the ownership really makes them dive right in and accomplish what they want to accomplish with their own learning.”

Ehm explained that this is something that helped Arnold stand out.

“STEM isn’t only science, technology, engineering and math,” Ehm said. It’s the way that you teach things. It’s more of an instructional methodology. She let’s them figure it out. She’s not the expert on everything, she’s just the one that guides them through the process of learning rather than dispensing the learning.”

Winners of the STEM Teacher Award are chosen through a process of nomination, application and voting.

“Every year, there is a call to nominate your favorite STEM teacher, nominate someone that has impacted you,” Ehm said. “Once you’re nominated, you’re notified that you’ve been nominated, then you have to do the extra step of actually applying for the award. Then it goes through a review process, so there’s different stakeholders from businesses to higher education that review the applications and score them. Based on those scores, a winner is selected.”

Ehm was excited to award Arnold with this honor.

“There were amazing candidates this year, every single one of them was a great applicant,” Ehm said. “Maggie is so deserving of this award and I was super pleased, not only because of the great work that she does, but just knowing her as a human and as a teacher and how she interacts with the kids and the opportunities she creates for them...Slam dunk.”

Arnold said she hopes to continue the community partnerships in the coming years. She also has an idea for the $1,500 for classroom use.

“There’s a teacher that used to be at CAM (Cumberland, Anita and Massena) high school and in her classroom, she had drones and her students were able to get their drone pilot’s license within her classroom,” Arnold said. “I’d really like to go that route and take a look at a drone for one piece of equipment for my room.”

This is just one of many STEM awards recently given in the Creston Community School District.

“Creston is actually right now sort of a hot bed,” Ehm said. “Callie [Anderson]’s gotten a STEM BEST through the ECC, and the she’s got another one coming this fall. There’s a lot of really good things happening in Creston right now.”