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2016 STEM Education Innovation Challenge Grant Competition

The Maine STEM Collaborative, with financial support from the Maine Space Grant Consortium, is pleased to announce the inaugural STEM Education Innovation Challenge Grant Competition. Our intention is to schedule a competition every other year in order to coincide with the Collaborative’s signature event, the biannual Maine STEM Summit. The goal of this competition is to provide K-12 educators the opportunity to try out highly innovative ideas in STEM teaching and learning. Although we hope all funded ideas will be successful, we are more interested in stimulating an innovation culture within Maine’s K-12 community that “does not think out of the box, but thinks there is no box”, and empowers educators to “try fast, learn quickly, fail small, and evolve rapidly.” In keeping with these principles, we also encourage ideas that combine the arts, humanities, and/or social sciences with STEM, as long as the outcomes focus on enhancing STEM teaching and learning.

The 2016 STEM Education Innovation Challenge Grant Competition culminates in a “Fast Pitch” presentation – a high energy, rapid-fire presentation event during which finalists share their vision and impact of their ideas with the audience and judges – in just eight minutes! – at the 2016 STEM Summit on Friday, November 18, 2016 at Colby College. After the presentations, we will announce grant awards ranging from $2,000 to $5,000 to the finalists to support implementation of their ideas.

The complete announcement including guidelines and the application package can be viewed and download from the Competition’s webpage, so visit to learn more about the STEM Innovation Challenge.

Download a PDF about the competition here.

Download a PDF flyer for the STEM Summit here.