Texas elementary school teacher Lori Garrett has earned a prestigious 2022 PAEMST Award. Photo Credit: Moore County Journal

It is always a pleasure for me to share stories about exceptional educators who have earned recognition for their work. One of these is Lori Garrett, an elementary school teacher from Texas who has garnered a prestigious 2022 PAEMST award.

The PAEMST, Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, recognize the dedication, hard work, and importance that America’s teachers play in supporting learners who will become future STEM professionals, including computer technologists, climate scientists, mathematicians, innovators, space explorers, and engineers. The PAEMST program, founded in 1983, is administered by the National Science Foundation (NSF) on behalf of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The honor comes with a $10,000 cash prize.

Lori’s career as an educator spans ten years, all of which she has spent at Cactus Elementary School in the Dumas Independent School District in Cactus, Texas. She taught one year in kindergarten and two years of fourth grade math and science. For seven years, she has been developing and teaching a pilot program that provides science pull-out for pre-kindergarten to fourth grade students, and a pull-out enrichment program for kindergarten to fourth grade students. The enrichment program features agricultural and project-based learning opportunities. She has also been working on expanding the school’s Maker Room STREAMS curriculum to include not only STEM goals, but also reading, art, and social studies objectives.

As if all this were not enough, Lori and her students have incorporated produce grown in their classroom garden into food packages which are delivered through a community outreach program. The recipients are enthusiastic about receiving fresh produce instead of relying entirely on canned and packaged goods, explains Lori. For this work, she has twice earned a White-Reinhardt Mini-Grant from the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture.

In addition to her PAEMST Award and her White-Reinhardt Mini-Grant, Lori was honored as her District’s Elementary Teacher of the Year in 2021. She also garnered the Ag in the Classroom Teacher Award from the Texas Farm Bureau’s  in 2017.

Lori earned her Bachelor’s degree in Marine Biology and a Third Mate License in the Merchant Marines, both from Texas A&M University at Galveston.