TREMONT— The learning happening inside one Downeast classroom is getting national attention.
In 2025, the work being done inside Tonya Prentice’s classroom at Tremont Consolidated School earned national recognition, highlighting both her teaching and the students’ hands-on approach to science.
“She goes out of her way to create real world situations for her students that allows them to be fully engaged and immersed in what they’re doing,” said Jandrea True, principal of Tremont Consolidated School.
That approach helped Prentice earn the 2025 Outstanding Biology Teacher Award from the National Association of Biology Teachers.
“She finds every opportunity to get them involved inside the world, inside the walls of our school, but also outside in the community. They can be found in the marsh. They can be found in the national park. They’re involved in presenting throughout the state of Maine,” True said.
One example of those real world learning experiences is the “Build a Moon Challenge,” a project that earned Prentice’s sixth grade class international recognition from the Institute of Competition Sciences as Best in Show.
Prentice said the competition challenged students to think through problems scientists are currently working to solve.
“NASA’s going to the moon with Artemis. They’re going to develop a colony there. So with this project, it’s basically got students thinking about what the habitat is like on the moon and what astronauts need to do to survive,” Prentice said.
Students used a material designed to imitate moon debris to create landing pads, building blocks and other structural components astronauts would need to live and work on the moon.
“We talked about payloads. You can’t take everything with you, so you have to use the resources on the moon,” Prentice said.
Once their designs were complete, students tested them under different conditions, recording data and documenting results through videos and observations.
“Under different conditions and recording that information and with videos and any type of data they collected along the way,” Prentice said.
The winning team, known as the Lunar Legends, competed against 70 teams from 19 states, Puerto Rico and South Korea.
School officials said the students will also be recognized locally for their accomplishment.