Dr. Anthony Husemann, a Nome science teacher, was recently awarded funds for students to conduct independent research projects for national science fairs and competitions. The prestigious grant is only awarded to 66 teachers nation-wide.

Among other things, the funds cover lab kits students can use whether at school or learning at home. Previous student projects have been developed into patentable products.

Ultimately, Husemann hopes to awaken an interest in the STEM fields. He described giving his Personal Finance class copies of a newspaper and asking students to note what jobs consistently come available: many of them at the hospital or smaller village clinics.

“A wonderful spinoff of this would be if students became interested in science and in bioscience and biomedicine and medical science through it, that we get a significant number of new CNAs, nurses, and PAs, etc, coming out of our own school system. … The hope would be that we can create a cadre of young scientists coming out of the high schools who go to universities and come back to our communities and serve them,” Husemann said.