St. Mary School News

February 15, 2018 by Staff Report

Teacher Earns Honors and Grants

St. Mary junior high teacher Julie Fedak has been busy this year racking up dollars for the school and procuring personal honors for herself as well. This year alone, Mrs. Julie Fedak has secured the Adelstein Award from the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park, along with a seat on the Environmental Education Center’s Curriculum Advisory Cohort. She also received news that her Orthopaedics In Action grant was approved for St. Mary School, which will allow the students hands on learning with materials and lessons provided by Zimmer Biomet and The Perry Initiative.

The Adelstein Award, an annual prize from the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park, is given to a school or class that demonstrates exceptional environmental education or stewardship activities. St. Mary will receive $1,000 toward educational resources to enhance environmental education.

“We are thrilled to provide the Adelstein Award to two outstanding teachers and their classes this year,” said Katie Wright, director of the Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Education Center. “Not only does this award bring what was learned at the education center back into students’ everyday lives, but it helps create environmental stewards out of these passionate students.”

Each year Julie Fedak travels with the St. Mary sixth-graders to overnight camp at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park for a week, where the students learn about the environment during their stay. This visit makes their school eligible to apply for grants through the Conservancy there.

The school plans to use the funds to build a “salad bar greenhouse” from recycled plastic bottles and grow vegetables for school lunches. While at the conservancy’s education center, students saw how locally produced foods were incorporated into their meals. The project will expand upon that lesson, including harnessing solar energy and water collection methods to reduce runoff from the school’s parking lot and building.

Mrs. Fedak’s efforts and work also earned her an invitation to serve on the Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Education Center’s Curriculum Advisory Cohort for 2018. The goal of the advisory cohort is to advise the education center’s educational team on curriculum development. This year Mrs. Fedak also became the STEM coordinator for St. Mary School, which is now a state recognized STEM school by the Ohio Department of Education.

Outside of the environmental education component, Mrs. Fedak has also been working to bring some exciting new adventures to students in the medical and engineering fields. This is part of The Perry Initiative group’s mission to build a pipeline for women in the fields of engineering and medicine through their newest initiative “Orthopaedics in Action.” OIA is able to provide interactive lesson kits to schools through their partnership with Zimmer Biomet, an international medical device manufacturer.

Mrs. Fedak said, “even though we are a co-educational school, we search for programs like OIA so that our female students can see themselves in science fields.  Since our students are at the age where their bones grow and sometimes break, our students will be eager to learn more about them and how they heal.”

St. Mary students will receive instruction with the following topics: “Scoliosis Diagnosis,” “Fracture Puzzles,” “Anatomy of a Knee Injury” and “Repair That Tear.” These will include interactive lessons and hands on time with bone models.

In addition to her work as STEM coordinator, Mrs. Fedak also provides free after school tutoring to her students in math once a week and directs the yearly junior high musical.

Principal Mary Petelin says, “Julie is well-respected by both teachers and parents. She is a teacher-leader in every sense of the title.”

May all the new initiatives Mrs. Fedak has brought to St. Mary go well and bring new excitement to this generation of learners, as they also learn from her example that hard work pays off.