Corporate
Leading Teachers Focus on Sustainability Education
8/4/2021
Recently, the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow program, a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) competition that challenges public school students in grades 6-12 to showcase how STEM can be applied to help improve their community, hosted its third annual Teacher Academy. The Academy is a two week-long program offering teachers from across the U.S. a unique professional development experience designed to build and sustain a culture of STEM teaching and learning, with an enhanced focus on sustainability initiatives in their communities.
The participating Academy teachers are all Solve for Tomorrow alumni who collectively earned over $1,500,000 million in technology and classroom materials for their respective schools this year. Sixty-six teachers from 38 states continued or began their remote learning journey, attending Academy sessions supported by Solve for Tomorrow partner, mindSpark Learning. The curriculum included exercises that tackled how to implement problem-based learning (PBL) and how to create an empathetic learning environment.
The inaugural cohort came together in Silicon Valley in 2019. For the past two years, this cohort and the second cohort have met virtually for the academy—only highlighting the dedication these teachers have to the program and Solve for Tomorrow.
Given the urgency of the climate crisis, first-year Academy teachers from the 2021 cohort focused their efforts on sustainability related education.
“This year, we asked our newest group of Academy teachers to look at unique ways to tackle sustainability education in their classrooms and present ideas through mini sessions with other teachers and Samsung employees,” said Ann Woo, Senior Director of Corporate Citizenship at Samsung Electronics America. “At Samsung we are focusing on achieving tangible, data-driven sustainability across all our products, operations, and community engagement programs like Solve for Tomorrow. Additionally, our first cohort of teachers wrapped up their time with the Academy. These teachers are able to use the skills they have learned to lead SFT Academy sessions of their own. The peer network that the Academy has created has proven to be invaluable and will only strengthen the Solve for Tomorrow network of teachers and students, and result in the next generation learning how to solve urgent problems like climate change.”