For the last 19 years, Dr. Megan Faliero has been finding innovative ways to teach kids how the world works.
Faliero, an AP Biology teacher at Durant High School, now has something new to show for it. The National Science Teachers Association announced this month that Faliero is one of six teachers nationwide to win the Robert E. Yager Foundation Excellence in Teaching Award.
Named for a former NSTA president, the Yager award gives six recipients a $1,000 cash prize, a $1,000 stipend to cover travel costs to the group's National Congress on Science Education and a plaque. Faliero will also be able to make a presentation at Congress.
“We congratulate Ms. Faliero for her lifelong commitment to science education and for her innovative and creative approach to teaching our students science,” NSTA president Carolyn Hayes said in a release.
Faliero's recent accomplishments include co-writing the district's guides and semester exams for AP Bio classes, participating in an AP Bio College Board pilot study and training new science teachers. She and 19 other math and science teachers in the county are participating in a five-year fellowship with the University of South Florida, training new teachers, and she participated in a USF research program last summer that saw her research and form lesson plans around the ballistics of salamander tongues.
Faliero will accept her award at the NSTA Congress in Colorado this July.