Allison Butler, B.S. '06, could hardly believe it. At a ceremony held on October 3, her name was announced as the first-place winner of ING’s national Unsung Heroes Award. The prize? A cool $25,000 grant to purchase new technology for the "Art at the Speed of Light" program she developed for her students at Glen Burnie High School in Maryland.
More than 1,300 applicants nationwide competed for the education award sponsored by the multinational banking and financial services corporation. Earlier in the year, Butler had secured a $2,000 grant from ING, but she had no idea she would take home the larger prize as well.
Butler's "Art at the Speed of Light" program is an interdisciplinary course that combines drawing and painting with the school's honors physics curriculum. Butler will use the award money to purchase telephoto zoom lenses, tripods, Claymation software, and computer tablet devices.
"The money is going to enhance the program tremendously," Butler told the Baltimore Sun. "Each project they do can have a serious photography and animation component to it that it didn’t have before."
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