WELLS — Two teachers from Wells Elementary School participating in the Maine Elementary Sciences Partnership presented a summary of the program during the meeting of the Wells-Ogunquit Consolidated School district on Monday.

The program began two years ago through a grant from the Maine Department of Education’s Math Science Partnership. According to the website, MESP connects teachers across Maine to share strategies on teaching science, technology, engineering and mathematics, known as STEM, subjects and uses themes to focus on different pedagogical aspects of STEM education. The program developed a task force responsible for selecting a curriculum program for these teachers, choosing a program called “STEMscopes” that includes a virtual STEM teaching assistant and focuses students on real world activities, according to the summary of the report.

“Several other schools in our partnership including Wells Elementary have chosen to try this resource in classrooms this year,” Wells Elementary teacher Henry Ingwersen said.

Elementary teachers Ingwersen and Charlene Kohn have participated in the past two years, and have used the opportunity to run professional development seminars for other teachers at Wells Elementary.

“We serve as liaisons for science and bring the resources of this program back to our school, Ingwerson said. “The best thing is to know we are not alone,” he added.

The program centers around monthly meetings with nearby teachers involved with the program as well as statewide meetings in which the group partners with STEM professors at the University of Maine. They also spend a weekend over the summer at the University of Maine in a summer institute; spending a total of 50 hours a year of professional development on these subjects bringing the knowledge back to the school.

The first year the group’s discussion topic was “productive talk” or getting students to engage with science through discussions, said Ingwersen, and currently the topic is “write science,” or promoting learning science through writing assignments.

“We feel really fortunate to be involved in this program,” Kohn said. “(It) is supporting over a 1,000 teachers across the state of Maine with high quality professional development and impacting over 15,000 students in the state.”