Idaho STEM Action Center has honored two educators who champion science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and integrate real-world experiences and hands-on activities into the classroom. A panel of industry experts selected teachers Todd Anderson and Junsong Su to receive the 2024 Sawtooth STEM Educator Awards, formerly known as INDEEDS Awards.
“These educators represent the dedication and innovation needed to prepare students and our communities for the challenges of the future,” Idaho Gov. Brad Little said. “Thank you to these outstanding educators for inspiring them to embrace innovation, collaboration, problem-solving, and critical thinking.”
The accolades were announced during the Idaho Technology Council Hall of Fame gala this past Friday night.
Su, the winner in the kindergarten through sixth-grade category, teaches Chinese, math, and science to fourth-grade students in South Fork Elementary School’s Mandarin Chinese immersion program. This is his fourth year at the Rigby school, where he also started an afterschool 3D printing club for fourth- and fifth-graders. Su moved to the U.S. from Nanjing, China, in 2019 to earn his master’s in bilingual and multilingual education at University of Northern Colorado.
Su is passionate about harnessing the transformative power of hands-on problem solving and project-based learning that he’s witnessed firsthand teaching STEM subjects.
“The knowledge or content students learn in school often has a gap with what they will be doing in the future,” Su said. “Teaching STEM really helps students see what they can do with the knowledge, and what they can become.
“Sometimes I’ll invite professionals to come to my class and they will talk about what they do and what’s the relationship to what we are doing in the classroom. When we are learning about energy transfer, I invite an HVAC professional to come to our class and talk about how to keep the heat in the house while it’s cold outside. Students are way more motivated to learn when they can see the connection and when they have something hands-on like that instead of learning from a textbook or a video.”
Anderson, the Sawtooth Awards winner in the seventh- through 12th-grade category, concurs.
“What I like the most about teaching STEM is the hands-on nature of it and the real-world application of everything that we do,” Anderson said. “I made a joke with my students who are designing this virtual reality simulator for the CNC mill they’ll be using in second semester. So they get to build the whole thing and program how it works, and they had to take a bunch of measurements and were doing some calculations for the models that they were building, and I said, ‘You know, you’re doing math and it seems unnatural, because you’re not doing a worksheet to do math.’
“We pull it into the real context and they have tape measures out and they’re calculating area and density and all kinds of crazy things in order to be able to design this simulator for a machine. So it’s a very real-world application, and they get to see some immediate results. They get to build things in the real world, and that’s pretty awesome.”
Anderson teaches engineering to students in grades 9-12 at Canyon Ridge High School in Twin Falls and coaches its FIRST Tech Challenge robotics and SkillsUSA programs. He earned his master’s in educational technology at Boise State University in 2010 and is beginning his third year at Canyon Ridge and his 18th year as a teacher.
Like Su, Anderson works with industry partners to help his students see career paths.
“They don’t know the jobs that exist out there,” Anderson says. “They don’t know what they can do with the design and programming skills they’re gaining here if we don’t’ share that with them.”
STEM Action Center executive director Dee Mooney said both teachers integrate real-world experiences, hands-on activities, and industry interaction into their lesson plans to ensure students develop the knowledge and skillsets Idaho employers need.
“Junsong and Todd make huge impacts on students every day,” Mooney said. “They’re stoking a passion for STEM learning and careers in their classrooms and providing the workforce of the future with invaluable industry connections. My colleagues and I at Idaho STEM Action Center are so proud to have presented Junsong and Todd with Idaho’s top award for excellence in STEM education.”
Both educators will receive checks for $2,000 and up to $3,000 more to attend any STEM- related national conference, plus their schools will receive $2,000 each to fund science, technology, engineering, and math initiatives. Idaho STEM Action Center, the Micron Foundation, Idaho National Laboratory, Technology Credit Union, Boise Cascade, Idaho Power, and IBL Events are providing the prize package.
About Idaho STEM Action Center
Learn more at stem.idaho.gov and visit stem.idaho.gov/support-us/foundation to make a tax-deductible donation to its 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation to enhance the investment the state has made in Idaho’s STEM community.