OREANDA-NEWS.    Flint Hills Resources is making a USD 1 million gift to Texas State Aquarium to help create a new Center for Excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Education.

The new center will make learning about science, technology, engineering and mathematics more accessible to students and teachers across the United States. Participants will be able to engage in experiments, quantitative and qualitative observations, data collection and a number of other activities through web-based distance learning technology.

“Our long-standing partnership with the Texas State Aquarium has helped students from all around the country learn about marine life, and concepts tied to science, technology, engineering and math without having to leave their classroom. We are happy to be able to help TSA expand its programs and enrich the lives of twice as many students,” said Valerie Pompa, vice president and manufacturing manager for Flint Hills Resources Corpus Christi. “We enjoy being able to help showcase the amazing natural resources that exist in our community.”

The new center, which will be housed in the Aquarium, will also expand TSA’s current Aquavision Distance Learning Studio, another program that Flint Hills Resources has supported for many years. Aquavision provides access to the aquarium’s animals, staff and educational programs through web-based video conferencing technology. Through Aquavision and its other educational programming, TSA will be able to double its annual number of students served through its educations programs to 120,000 including thousands of students across the U.S. who are not able to visit the aquarium or the Gulf of Mexico.

"For more than 25 years, Flint Hills Resources has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to the Texas State Aquarium and our educational efforts. Now, with this transformational gift, Flint Hills Resources and the Texas State Aquarium are taking on a leadership role in science education in South Texas. The new Flint Hills Resources Center for Excellence in STEM Education will allow us to help definitively tackle the challenge of improving STEM education for Coastal Bend students and teachers,” said Tom Schmid, president and CEO of the Texas State Aquarium.

Over the past 20 years, Flint Hills Resources has provided an additional USD 1 million in funding for a number of programs at the Texas State Aquarium. The company has also hosted kids from the aquarium’s summer SeaCamp program at its Wildlife Learning Preserve, located near its West Refinery on Suntide Road. More than 1,200 SeaCampers have taken part in this educational experience over the last decade.