Allan Phipps
National Science Foundation
Education and Human Resources Directorate, Division of Undergraduate Education, Math and Science Partnership Program/Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program
Florida, High School Environmental Science
Allan Phipps has been a high school science teacher in south Florida for 11 years. He currently teaches environmental science and solar and alternative energies at South Plantation High School’s Everglades Restoration and Environmental Science Magnet Program. Phipps also mentors environmental service-learning projects.
Phipps earned his B.S. in Biology at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama and his M.S. in Biology from Florida International University where his research on the efficacy of traditional Japanese methods for detoxifying a poisonous mushroom reminded him of his childhood in Japan.
Phipps received the Toyota Tapestry Award in 2006, the SeaWorld Environmental Excellence Award in 2007 and 2008 and was named Outstanding Environmental Educator Award by SeaWorld in 2007. These awards helped fund multiple environmental projects that Phipps mentors including the RARE CORAL Project in which students learned about coral reefs using curriculum developed by Phipps and then deployed their own artificial reefs. Phipps sponsors the Solar Knight Racing Team, a full-sized student-built solar-powered car that his students race annually; his students were the 2009 Classic Division National Champions and the 2011 Advanced Division National Champions. Phipps has sponsored the EcoGeeks Club since 2008 and his students won the Lexus Eco Challenge National Grand Prize in 2009.
Florida’s Governor named Phipps the Serve to Preserve: Green Schools Initiative Teacher of the Year in 2009 and Broward County recognized Phipps as the 2011 Broward County Teacher of the Year. He was a finalist for the 2011 Macy’s Florida Teacher of the Year and President Obama awarded him the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching in 2009.
Allan likes to keep his students guessing and has arrived at school dressed in a hazmat suit to teach his students about nuclear waste and spooked his students with a graveyard demographics lab and ghostly history tour of the old Miami Cemetery.
“I challenge my students to go beyond their textbook and apply what they have learned in class to make a difference in the world around them. I firmly believe that a motivated student is a powerful thing; if you show students that you truly believe in them, they can build cars that run on sunshine and turn several tons of ordinary concrete into teeming coral reefs.”
Phipps is serving his fellowship at the National Science Foundation, Education and Human Resources Directorate, Division of Undergraduate Education, Math and Science Partnership Program/Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program.