Students at Hixson High School and The Howard School have been awarded a Mozilla Open Science Grant to develop biomedical science projects.
The international grant was also awarded to researchers in Ghana, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany and other U.S. cities, but Hixson and Howard were the only K-12 institutions to receive a grant.
Currently, students across Hamilton County Schools have remote access to a 4K Microscope, housed at STEM School Chattanooga. With the Mozilla grant, teachers at Hixson and Howard will develop additional curricula and research projects that use the 4K Microscope for biomedicine.
Hixson and Howard will share $10,000 – the maximum amount of funding awarded.
“Innovators don’t have to work at major institutions or even be a certain age,” says Lindsey Dodson, interim director of awards and fellowships at the Mozilla Foundation. “And there’s no better example of this than the work students and educators in Hamilton County are doing with the 4K Microscope.”
The grants have been awarded specifically to the two schools’ Future Ready Institutes – the Erlanger Institute of Healthcare and Innovation at The Howard School and Institute of Health Careers and Medical Advancement at Hixson High School.
In 2018, Hamilton County Schools established Future Ready Institutes in 13 Hamilton County high schools, offering a career-based educational model to small cohorts of students.
Healthcare remains one of Hamilton County’s key industries, with a growing need for lab technicians, researchers and other professionals to enter the field. The grant will provide opportunities for students to explore these potential career pathways, as well as contribute to ongoing research projects.
Students will begin working on the grant this fall.
Source: Mozilla Foundation