Licking Heights Local Schools instructor Chris Sommerkamp has been honored with the 2024-25 Leaders for Learning Award by the Licking County Foundation (LCF).
Sommerkamp is in her 19th year with the district and currently works as the STEM teacher in the new Lima Ridge Elementary School. This is a new role designed to teach students strategic thinking skills through hands-on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics projects. Most recently, Sommerkamp worked as a Gifted Intervention Specialist for fourth grade students at Everest Elementary.
Lima Ridge principal Kurt Scheiderer nominated Sommerkamp for the award, writing, “While we are in the first year of having an actual STEM class for students, Mrs. Sommerkamp has been incorporating this mindset into her classes for as long as I have known her. As a student, she was motivated by non-traditional, hands-on learning experiences and she has always provided these same opportunities for her students.”
Scheiderer also praised Sommerkamp for her leadership abilities, writing that beyond leading the STEM course, she regularly provides her colleagues with opportunities to incorporate STEM learning in their classrooms.
Outside of the classroom, Sommerkamp is a respected scholar of STEM education and student learning, serving on the Board of the Science Education Council of Ohio (SECO). She is a member of the inaugural class of NASA Limitless Space Institute, a highly competitive program for educators who want to bring space education into the classroom. She spent her summer at the NASA Educator Academy, and last year advanced to the national round for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST).
The LCF created the Leaders for Learning Award in 1993 to promote excellence in public education and to honor exemplary teachers in Licking County, according to the LCF website.
The goals of the program are to “identify and recognize teachers who exemplify excellence in teaching; to provide opportunities for teachers to participate in professional growth activities, and to support their classroom activities, and to encourage teachers from the participating districts to join together to enhance the quality of education in the community.”