For the third consecutive year, Vernier Software & Technology is partnering with the National Science Education Leadership Association (NSELA) to award six educators with a Vernier Emerging Science Education Leader Scholarship (VESELS). The winning educators, one from each of the NSELA regions, will each receive a $500 scholarship to be used toward attendance at the annual NSELA Summer Leadership Institute (SLI) held on June 24–26, 2019 in Orlando, FL.
All applicants must have held an emerging leader role at the school, district, state, or informal level for three years or less to qualify for the scholarship. To apply, educators must submit a resume or vita, a personal letter with evidence illustrating emerging leadership, and a support letter from a supervisor. All applicants must also agree to work with an NSELA mentor and communicate to others in the organization throughout the year about how they are applying what they learned at the SLI.
Amy Hochschild, a 6th grade science teacher at Burton Elementary School in Ohio, was one of the six recipients of the 2018 VESELS.
“Winning the VESELS has been a tremendous experience,” Amy explained. “I’ve learned to give up some control of the activities I want to do. Instead, I let students really take the steering wheel with their own learning. I’ve also incorporated the Three Dimensional Learning model, which gives students ample opportunities to reflect on data and what they’ve learned during each lesson. This process makes learning real and more relatable for my students and encourages them to continue to set new learning goals.”
All applications for the 2019 VESELS are due March 22, 2019. Scholarship awardees will be announced by April 19, 2019.