Milford Schools Receive $7K Grant For STEM Projects

MILFORD, NH — The Milford School District's Career and Technical Education Innovation Project has earned $7,000 in federal funding through a N.H. BioMade Advanced Biomaterials grant. The fund aims to advance the design and manufacture of biomaterials, and the rapidly growing New Hampshire biomaterials industry.

The grant is designed to support the district's efforts to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics career pathways for all Milford students, with an emphasis on students from underrepresented populations in the STEM fields.

The Milford CTE Innovation Project aims to establish an academic STEM pipeline between middle school and high school career development. The program also prepares high school students to pursue a career in STEM disciplines.

"This additional funding will be invaluable in expanding our offerings so that we can make a more concerted effort to invite a variety of bio-related and biomanufacturing stakeholders to meet our students and introduce them to this exciting work," Applied Technology Center Director Vaso Partinoudi said. "I strongly feel that all of our middle and high school students can expand their horizons through opportunities like these and build their innovation skills so that they can pursue a variety of careers after graduation."

Representatives from local manufacturing companies, academic institutions, CTE centers from throughout New Hampshire and local bio-related companies will be invited to participate in educational workshops. Milford High teachers will be able to dedicate time to planning and hosting STEAM nights after school, develop biomanufacturing curricula and make purchases to help in STEM learning.

"We're so excited to be able to expand our CTE programming and give our students hands-on experience and a chance to explore such a quickly growing industry," Career Development Specialist Jenn DiMaria said.

More information on the NH BioMade Educational Grant can be found here.