Schools : Education news : Hewes Middle Teacher Wins Science Grant
Christine Cantrell, a science teacher in the Tustin Unified School District, has won a $4,800 grant for a program to help seventh-graders study biotechnology.
In the program, called Frog Forensics, students spend several weeks learning techniques of fingerprinting, hair and fiber analysis and the physics of blood.
Upon “discovering” a deceased frog and a trail of clues, the students conduct a criminal investigation and an autopsy-type dissection. Students then prepare the case for trial, where they serve as judge, jury, attorneys and members of the press.
The money will be used for a video microscope and computer equipment.
The grant is from Medtronic Foundation, the nonprofit arm of a Minneapolis-based medical equipment company with a division in Irvine.
The grant program called STAR, for Science and Technology Are Rewarding, is designed to encourage students to consider careers in science, officials said.
Cantrell, who has conducted the program at Hewes Middle School since she began teaching there three years ago, was Orange County’s top middle school science teacher last year in the Encouraging Excellence in Science Education Awards, presented by Toshiba Corp.
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