Florida STEM educator Ryan Smith has written grants that have garnered over $60,000 for classroom projects and earned several prestigious awards for developing lessons that employ hands-on projects. Photo credit:
One of the most awesome educators around is Ryan Smith, a STEM teacher from Lake Worth, Florida. Ryan has earned several prestigious awards for developing lessons that employ hands-on projects to draw a direct connection between science concepts and the real world.
Ryan teaches science, math, and STEM courses to elementary students in grades two through eight. He has developed several elective courses for students in his school. These include a class in Environmental Engineering and another in Digital Design & Fabrication. In addition, Ryan co-created the Stiles-Nicholson STEM Inventors Challenge, which has been resulted in the placement of over 70 3D printers in middle and elementary schools in his area.
In 2021, Ryan garnered an Rosenthal Prize Honorable Mention from the National Museum of Mathematics. The honor was earned for his lesson, “Astronaut Explorer: A Measurement Conversion Conundrum,” which allows students to take on the role of astronauts exploring a new planet on which they must learn about the civilization’s measurement system. This activity promotes genuine thinking, decoding, and reasoning, and is designed to help students construct procedures for converting from one unit to another using ratios and unit conversions. Ryan was awarded a $500 cash prize.
In addition to his Rosenthal Prize honors, Ryan garnered the School District of Palm Beach County Innovative Educator Award in both 2016 and 2015. In 2014, Ryan earned the Palm Beach County Science Educators (PBCSEA) Teacher of the Year Award.
Originally, Ryan planned to be a physical therapist, and for this reason he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology and Exercise Science from Arizona State University in 2002. But then he changed course and decided to pursue a career in the classroom. He earned a second Bachelor’s degree in Education and Instructional Technology in 2016. He also earned a Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Kaplan University in 2012.