Springville High physics teacher wins Presidential Award for Excellence
- Springville High School physics teacher Wesley Morgan.
- Student’s from one of Wesley Morgan’s physics classes at Springville High School work on a project in January 2025.
One time at Springville High School, pigs actually flew.
Hung from the ceiling inside Wesley Morgan’s physics classroom, 10 plastic toy pigs with wings attached spun in a circle, creating a case problem for Morgan’s Advanced Placement students to solve.
Using trigonometry and making calculations, the students determined the force and acceleration of the pigs flying above.
The exercise was a typical one inside Morgan’s classroom. He has an entire closet full of different items to bring out for a lab or a demo.
But this time, he recorded the activity on video and made it part of his application for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.
“I just wanted to show the process of how it helps students kind of warm up into the lesson by doing their own investigation,” Morgan said. “It’s fun to see the video. You got these 10 pigs flying around. But also I liked that it was a good example of how I teach the students the equations and I help them practice. But it’s really more that they’re helping each other.”
It was announced Wednesday that Morgan, a Springville resident, won the 2023 version of the prestigious award for STEM teachers in grades 7-12.
Administered by the National Science Foundation and presented by the White House, two teachers from each state are given the prize on an annual basis.
Morgan’s decision to take on the application process, which involved a 30-minute flying pigs video followed by 10 research-heavy essays, was a rewarding one.
He’ll receive a $10,000 prize and, if all goes to plan, a trip to Washington, D.C., to receive the award and a certificate signed by the president.
“(Looking) as far back as I could, I’m the first person from Nebo (School District) to get this award,” he said. “So it’s a big deal for the district.”
Winning aside, the application experience was a positive one for Morgan, giving him a chance to analyze his teaching methodology.
Morgan, who graduated from Brigham Young University in 2018, gives credit to his physics teaching professor, Duane Merrell, for inspiring his teaching ways.
“He actually got this award, like, 30 years ago, which is cool to be on the list with him,” Morgan said. “And he really focuses on (being hands-on). He’s taught a lot of physics teachers around the state.”
Morgan started at Springville High School as a teaching intern in the fall of 2017 and has worked there ever since, teaching several physics classes. For a handful of years, he also was the student council advisor.
His goal is for students to work with each other in their hands-on learning. He wants to be more of a facilitator than someone who just tells kids what to do.
His lessons have included an egg blast lab, a walk to a nearby creek to measure fluid dynamics, and much more.
“I really try to focus on having my lessons be very interactive,” Morgan said.
This year, he teaches four different physics classes at Springville High. There’s the general physics class, then his two AP physics classes — Physics 1 and Physics 2.
He estimates he’s one of 10 teachers in the state to do AP physics 2.
“It’s a more advanced class that goes into some of the smaller-scale physics, electromagnetism and light, and quantum physics, which is all my favorite stuff,” Morgan said.
And this year, he started a new physics class specifically for Spanish speakers. He learned the language on his mission in Paraguay for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“I know every school is dealing with a pretty large influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants, and we decided that our school should have one math class and one science class taught in Spanish for those students,” Morgan said. “Normally, I would have very few Hispanic students take physics, and now I’ve got 20 students who probably wouldn’t be taking it. But they’re doing just as well as the other kids, just in their native language.”
For Morgan, winning the award has been a chance to reconnect with several of his past students from his different classes, many of whom have gone on to study science in college.
“It’s been great to just have so many students from the past few years write me emails and just say thank you for everything,” he said. “It is nice to be recognized. I think the community always appreciates teachers, and Springville is actually a very strong community. I really love living here, just because I do feel like it’s a very close-knit community, and people are very kind.”