10/4/2022
Education and Outreach
Green Valley High School physics teacher Scott Panik has won numerous accolades for teaching, including being named 2005 Nevada Teacher of the Year and receiving the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics/Science Teaching in 2007.
But winning a Heart of Education Award from The Smith Center in April was different.
“I was nominated by a parent, and it was very special because this is my second year with her daughter in my class, and many years ago I was her husband's teacher, as well,” Panik explains. “I've been at the same school throughout my career, so it's neat to see students I taught years ago stay in the same community to raise their own families. Last year I taught my seventh second-generation student, and I take a lot of pride in being able to say that.”
As a nonprofit, The Smith Center created its annual Heart of Education Awards to celebrate Clark County School District (CCSD) educators who go above and beyond, with over 700 finalists recognized each year at a red-carpet event.
Thanks to generous support from the Rogers Foundation, the top 20 teachers each receive a $5,000 cash award, a medallion and a $1,000 donation to their school.
Community members nominate teachers for the awards program each year, and nominated teachers submit applications that undergo a thorough review process.
Panik earned this honor because of his goal to instill a love and understanding of physics and its applications with every generation of students.
“I am not naive enough to think that every student will pursue physics or a physics-related field as a career, but I try to teach like I want that to happen,” Panik explains. “I try very hard to make physics appealing to every student, by incorporating as many real-life applications as possible.”
He finds these real-life examples everywhere, he adds.
“If I can encourage students to be curious about why they feel a certain way when their car is accelerating, why a rainbow forms on their wall at a certain time of day, or how their noise-canceling headphones work, then I think linking everyday personal experiences to learning helps to breed passion for physics,” he says.
Students respond when he shows this passion himself, he notes.
“I always tell students I want them cursed with physics in such a way that everything they do leads them to reflect on some physics concept we have discussed in class,” he says. “And, of course, I think if you want students to be passionate about what you teach, you must exude that passion yourself. Excitement is contagious.”
Panik’s passion for physics came from his own high school physics teacher.
“The first day of class, he stood on his desk and then proceeded to sprint all over the room while jumping on and off student desks as well. He was in his late 40s, so it was quite a memory for a high school kid like me to see this old man doing that,” Panik recalls. “I will admit to stealing that demonstration, and still using it to explain the difference between distance and displacement with my own students.”
Panik will be using a portion of his cash prize to establish a scholarship at Green Valley High School for students wishing to pursue a major in physics, engineering or physics education.
“I'm hoping to sustain this scholarship for many years to come,” he explains.
This is not surprising, coming from a teacher whose mantra and guiding philosophy throughout his career has been “physics is life,” which is prominently displayed in his classroom.
“Physics is a subject that connects to literally everything important to the lives of students,” Panik says. “I have made it my mission to find any means possible to bring out a love of physics in all the kids I teach.”
LEARN MORE
The nomination period for The Smith Center’s Heart of Education Awards runs from November through January each year. To learn more about this awards program, visit www.TheHeartofEducation.org.