AFCEA presents grant to Ogden High

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Melissa Dearstone
  • 75th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah --  Essye Miller, Armed Forces Communication and Electronics Association, Wasatch Chapter president and director of Hill Air Force Base Communications Directorate, awarded Kurt Jensen, Career and Technical Education faculty member at Ogden High School, the AFCEA Wasatch Chapter Educational Foundation's Science Teaching Tools Grant worth $1,000, on March 4.

Ogden High School was the recipient of the AFCEA Wasatch Chapter Educational Foundation's Science Teaching Tools Grant Program for the 2009-2010 academic school year.

Miller explains that the purpose of the AFCEA Educational Foundation is to promote effective science teaching and to enhance the abilities of capable science, technology, engineering and math program teachers worldwide.

"We did not require proposals this year," said Edward Drollette, with the Defense Information Systems Agency. "We recognized that often, schools and teachers do not have the staff or resources to develop grant proposals so we chose to develop an in-house methodology that canvassed all the schools in the local area. From that list, it was very competitive choosing the winner."

Every year AFCEA provides $1,000 grants through 144 AFCEA chapters worldwide to worthy and deserving programs that augment science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, activities in the classroom. Ogden High School was selected from 14 other high schools and four private schools across Box Elder, Weber and Davis counties.

"Mr. Jensen has shown tremendous initiative in promoting STEM education at Ogden High School and has achieved sustained success promoting many worthwhile initiatives with several community partners," Drollette said. "Through Mr. Jensen's leadership and Ogden High School's administration support, Ogden High School currently has six sections of engineering, two sections of machining, two sections of drafting and ten sections of automotive technology and students can earn college credits for those courses."

After accepting the grant, Jensen explained the funds would go to good use by covering ongoing costs of supplies and upkeep for their 3D printer/Rapid Prototyping machine which was purchased by the Ogden Weber Applied Technology College for Ogden High School.