PPL Awards STEM Grants

It only takes one lesson, one project, or one meeting with the right person to shape a child’s future. 

Once something catches their imagination, the spark of their curiosity does the rest. Sometimes, those magic learning moments can set the stage for a lifelong career.

The start of a new school year is a good time to recognize teachers. While a “spark” moment can happen anywhere, it’s often the hard work, knowledge and imagination of teachers that help bring them about.

To help more spark moments take place in our 29-county service area, PPL Corporation is working with PBS39 and other partners to once again offer our Empowering Educators grant program.

Teachers in grades K-12 can receive $1,000 funding for educational projects such as science fairs, energy conservation projects, renewable energy demonstrations and math competitions. We’d like to help those teachers bring science, technology, engineering and math to life. 

(Supporting STEM education also helps build a strong, math-smart workforce for the decades to come, which benefits all of our communities.)

PPL will award $15,000 in grants this year. Since the program began in 2003, we’ve awarded more than $165,000 for projects in 93 schools.  Last year’s grant recipients included:

Easton Area Middle School (Easton, Pa.): 
Holy Infancy School (Bethlehem, Pa.): 
Moravian Academy Middle School (Bethlehem, Pa
Raub Middle School (Allentown, Pa.): 
Northwestern Lehigh Middle School (New Tripoli, Pa.): 
Weatherly Area Middle School (Weatherly, Pa.): 

If you’re interested – or you know a teacher who might be – all the details can be found at pplweb.com/educatorgrants. Here’s the timeline:
-    Applications will be open from Sept. 1 to Oct. 31.
-    Grant winners will be announced Dec. 2.
-    Each project must be completed by April 15 of next year, with a final report submitted to the local station by May 6.

Please feel free to share this information with any teachers you know. We’d like the information to reach as many teachers as possible – so we can reach as many kids in as many classrooms as possible.

Because you never know where some future engineer or scientist might be waiting to discover themselves in the light of a spark.