Winning this Presidential Award would mean that it was perhaps not a mistake for me to make a career change into teaching twenty years ago. It would be very inspiring to me to be recognized for a lot of hard work, constantly grasping around to find and develop resources that work in the classroom. It would gratify many of my current and former colleagues, who invested a lot of their time advising me on good science teaching.

Raymond Smola APO, AE | 7-12, Science, 2009

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

Raymond Smola has taught science at Heidelberg High School in Germany for the past 8 years. He has also taught at Mannheim Middle School, Kubasaki High School in Okinawa, Japan (all for the Department of Defense Education Activity), and Stephenville High School in Texas. Raymond currently teaches classes in Chemistry, Physics, Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry, AP Physics B, and AP Physics C. He is active on the board of directors for both the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium and the Academic Bowl. Raymond is known for his stimulating teaching style and insistence on high student achievement in science. He is very proud that four of his students have been chosen for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Research Summer Institute in the past 5 years. He has been very active in developing a Moodle online component to his classes and using it to augment a Europe-wide science competition. Raymond has co-authored a chemistry laboratory book, Investigating Chemistry through Inquiry. Raymond has a B.S. in Chemistry from Texas Tech University and an M.A. in Physics Education from the University of Virginia. He is certified to teach middle school and high school science and mathematics in Texas and for the Department of Defense Education Activity.

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