A farm group helped sprout Neveln Elementary School’s new Launch Pad.

The school celebrated a $25,000 grant for the America’s Farmers Grow Rural Education program, sponsored by the Monsanto Fund, during a check-presentation ceremony and student assembly Wednesday afternoon at the school. The school plans to use the grant to help offset costs for the new Launch Pad — a science room and computer lab — which will be used with the program Launch.

Launch is the elementary curriculum for Project Lead the Way (PLTW), a program that supplies training and curriculum for teachers to implement science, technology, engineering, mathematics — or STEM — concepts into their classrooms.

I.J. Holton Intermediate School was Austin’s first STEAM — science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics school — and Neveln’s Launch program will help propel students into the sciences and be prepared when they reach I.J. Holton.

“It’s going to be a science class,” Neveln Principal Dewey Schara said to the students during the assembly. “More importantly than that, it’s going to be a class that you get to do hands-on things, you get to build things, you get to use iPads, and you get to use your brain. And that’s the number one thing that we’re hoping for with this class, is to make you incredible problem solvers.”

Every student will take Launch. First- and second-grade students will have the class once a week for 50 minutes, and third- and fourth-grade students will have the class three times a week for 50 minutes each. The curriculum encourages students to use critical thinking, and Schara hopes to help prepare students for I.J. Holton and the future.

Neveln paid for much of the curriculum and materials on its own, with help from the Austin Public School District for construction costs and other miscellaneous costs. The cost to Neveln was about $37,000, so Schara said this grant will help offset that cost.

“We were very, very fortunate at Neveln, because we have people around us who care about us and we had someone nominate us for a grant,” he said.

Haydee Ramirez, a technical agronomist who covers southeast Minnesota and representative from Monsanto, was excited to hand the check over to Neveln administrators. She said the program is there to help local farmers support their area school districts by nominating them for grants in math and science education.

“I would like to congratulate the [Austin Public School] District, which put together a great application, and all those who worked so hard to take care of the $25,000 grant award,” she said. “Because of their hard work and the community support, Austin Public Schools will be able to introduce Project Lead The Way curriculum.”

Ramirez said the America’s Farmers Grow Rural Education program started in 2011 and has given about $2.3 billion to schools.

Paul Heers Jr., who farms south of Oakland, nominated Neveln for the grant after learning of the program through his wife’s cousin, who previously nominated an Albert Lea school.

“Austin school needs it just as much, so I thought, ‘Well, I’ll give a nomination,’” he said.

He was excited to hear the school received the grant, as it will help students in the long run.

“I think it’s going to be wonderful, because the schools that are higher up in the food chain, so to speak, are probably going to utilize these same things,” Heers said. “So just being familiar with it at a younger age [is good].”

Heers has several grandchildren that, if the program is successful and passes to the other elementary schools, could benefit from the new curriculum.

For more information on the Grow Rural Education program, visit www.growruraleducation.com.

To read more about Neveln’s Launch Pad, check out a feature at www.austindailyherald.com/?p=649633 or in the Sept. 6 Herald.