Greenville Student Casey Sokolovic Receives STEM Award
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC –Casey Sokolovic has received a student leadership award from the North Carolina Science, Mathematics, and Technology Center. The SMT Center awarded the EPA at its annual SMT Celebration gala on April 18.
Casey Sokolovic started and runs the nonprofit Love a Sea Turtle (LAST), which has raised nearly $500,000 for The Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center on Topsail Island. Love a Sea Turtle started with baking turtle cookies to raise money. But it has grown to so much more. Through Casey’s vision and determination, LAST has become a champion for environmental awareness and the role everyone plays including children.
And Casey hasn’t stopped with sea turtles. Since 2011, Casey’s free camp program has hosted twenty plus weeks of free camps for over 700 at-risk youth. Boys & Girls Clubs, Intergenerational Center, Building Hope and other underserved youth organizations from four Eastern NC counties have attended the camps. Love A Sea Turtle has also provided additional mobile science programs for students in other counties. Casey believes STEM focused activities combined with unique outdoor experiences delivered to students who get the least amount of exposure is vital to the health of their community.
She is currently a senior at D.H. Conley High School in Greenville, NC.
The N.C. Science, Mathematics, and Technology (SMT) Center is focused on improving education as a means of providing all students in North Carolina with the knowledge and skills to have successful careers, be good citizens, and advance the economy of the state. Promoting innovation and change in education, the SMT Center celebrates educational excellence in North Carolina by supporting educators, engaging students, and advancing the growing importance of having a STEM-educated workforce.
The SMT Center also believes that STEM is more than Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. It’s Strategies That Engage Minds® through hands-on, active involvement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education that promotes essential cognitive skills for the 21st century.
Each year the North Carolina Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education Center (SMT Center) offers awards that recognize individuals and organizations whose extraordinary contributions to science, mathematics, and technology (SMT) education in North Carolina are helping to advance the mission of the SMT Center.
CONTACT: Lisa Rhoades at 919/991-5111 or lrhoades@bwfund.org