Friday, January 23, 2009

Raytheon honors five local math and tech teachers

By Brendan Lynch

Five New England teachers have landed $2,500 each from Raytheon Co.’s MathMovesU program, according to the defense giant.

The awards, which Raytheon (NYSE: RTN) calls its “Math Hero Awards,” were given to Joshua Frost of Jonas Clarke Middle School in Lexington; Barbara Rappaport of Fuller Middle School in Framingham; Mike Wenger of Londonderry High School in Londonderry, N.H.; Gregory Greco of the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center in Providence, R.I.; and Karen Climis, of Common Ground High School in New Haven, Conn. Raytheon also gives a matching $2,500 grant to the school where the teacher works.

The awards are intended to reward teachers for promoting science, technology engineering and math to students. Teachers were nominated by students, parents and faculty.

The company said it gave awards to 32 teachers across the United States.  

In October, Raytheon added 30 scholarships of $20,000 each to the MathMovesU program. The defense contractor revised MathMovesU to allow students who have already won a scholarship from the program to be eligible to win one of 30 additional $20,000 merit-based bonus awards if they major in a STEM field at an accredited college.

Raytheon as also developed a MathMovesU game, intended to show students how math is involved in their interests — music, fashion, sports and travel, for example.