Five science teachers have won the 2009 AAAS/Subaru Essay Writing Competition for their essays on designing science lesson plans and integrating technology in the classroom.

The competition, announced at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago, Ill., recognized one first-prize and four honorable-mention teachers for their wealth of knowledge about bringing innovative science into the classroom.

The winners all received a free pass to the Annual Meeting, a stipend to cover portions of their transportation, and a free one-year subscription to Science Books and Films, a review journal for all sciences and ages.

"This year's essay winners wrote about creative and thoughtful methods for engaging their students in science," said Suzanne Thurston, senior program associate in AAAS Education and Human Resources. "Their dedication to teaching science is outstanding and I am thrilled to have them participating at our annual meeting."

Currently in its seventh year, the competition received entries from teachers around the country describing methods for teaching science effectively and creatively.

The entries, required to be 1,500 words or fewer, were evaluated by a AAAS team for clarity, coherence, overall concept development, and grammar.

In one essay, Kathyn Pierno, a teacher at Gateway School in Lomond, Calif., wrote about her middle school science courses in which she uses her school's proximity to world-class surf break to teach her students about physics -- including energy, force, momentum, acceleration, balance, and buoyancy.

"[S]tudents learn better when they are interested in what they are studying," wrote Pierno. "I [try] to communicate basic science principles to them through their own language, hoping to capture their attention long enough to teach them some of my own."

First Place:

Kathryn Pierno
Surf Science and the Language of Middle School
Gateway School, Ben Lomond, CA

Honorable Mention:

Cary Seidman
The Vibrational Nature of Sound
Ruffing Montessori School, Cleveland Heights, OH            

Jonathan Gaste
Integrative Laboratory Classes Turn Smart Kids Into High School Scientists
Stuyvesant High School, New York, NY                   

Lee Brogie
Postcards from the Prairie
Wayne Middle School, Wayne, NE                       

Steve Rapp
Amazing School, Amazing Students
A. Linwood Holton Governor's School, Abingdon, Virginia