Guthrie Center High School Students will have the opportunity to take part in a hands-on project with local, state, and global implications this spring thanks to a grant received this fall.

Science teacher Marie Gipson informed the Guthrie Center School Board Monday that she applied for and received the maximum $8,000 allotted grant from the Robert Noyce Foundation. Gipson said the grant is geared towards collaboration, so she applied with a colleague who teaches in Peoria, Illinois. She says she’ll be using this grant for a water quality project for her environmental biology class next semester, in which they’ll test samples of the Raccoon River and the Illinois River in Peoria, and where those tributaries flow into the Mississippi River in St. Louis. Gipson says the grant will cover the cost of new probe equipment, and travel and lodging when applicable.