The Presidential Award is a celebration of all that my students, my building, and I have accomplished. Since the pandemic, education has been evolving, with creative ways of teaching emerging. This award shows that the trainings and inventive ways of engaging my students in STEM learning has been successful. Receiving this award is not indicative of myself as a teacher, but a celebration for the program at Springmill STEM Elementary School!

Andrea Murphy Mansfield, OH | K-6, Science, 2022

The official biography below was current at the time of the award.

Andrea Murphy has been teaching for over eight years. She began her career teaching a mathematics camp for multiple districts in the Richland and Crawford County areas. After completing the mathematics camp, Andrea was hired by Galion City Schools as an intervention specialist, first in a fourth grade co-teaching classroom, then in a self-contained special education classroom. After completing her third year of teaching, Andrea moved to a third grade general education classroom at Springmill STEM Elementary School, where she taught for three years. She is currently teaching third grade at Malabar Intermediate School. Andrea's teaching expands far beyond the traditional classroom. She uses hands-on mathematics and science activities as well as a flipped classroom. With the help of her third grade students in the 2020-2021 school year, Andrea applied for and won a grant from Directions Credit Union to build an outdoor classroom. While it was Andrea who wrote the grant, she credits the ideas and designs to the students themselves. Since engaging in outdoor learning, Andrea has continued to explore new options and funding opportunities to teach. In partnership with the school nurse, she received a grant to implement a tower garden in the 2021-2022 school year. She hopes to secure funding for a greenhouse to expand the tower garden, and future development of the outdoor learning spaces. Andrea earned a B.A in education from Ohio State University, where she participated in undergraduate research in special education. She is currently working to complete her M.A in gifted education from Cleveland State University. Andrea received her teaching certification in elementary education and has also completed her 18 curriculum hours for gifted education.

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