With school districts around the nation facing budget constraints, a John Yeates Middle School educator encourages fellow teachers to look outside of localities for extra resources.

Sixth-grade teacher Tim Kubinak is sharpening his classroom skills with help from the federal space agency and a global technology company.

After being named one of 50 teachers nationwide to attend the 2012 Siemens STEM Institute Program, outside Washington, D.C. from July 29 to Aug. 3, he has now been selected to attend a NASA training program at the Langley Research Center, also during the summer.

The NASA program, which will continue through December 2012 with online meetings, will provide “resources and … real experience with scientific inquiry,” Kubinak said.

For the two weeks of the program focusing on areas of teachers’ individual choosing, Kubinak said he would focus on atmospheric science.

The Siemens program, meanwhile, gives teachers the opportunity to discuss their teaching methods with leading scientists and other innovators in the science, technology, engineering and math fields.

“It’s really become a priority that we go outside our buildings to get material that will hold kids’ attention,” Kubinak said.

“Sometimes the textbook and sometimes the Internet even won’t give them (teachers) what they really need to really launch into that content.

“If private companies and government agencies are aware, that’s where teachers are going to go.”

It’s the students who repay the debt when they enter the workforce better educated and more equipped to fill skills gaps, according to Kubinak.

“Industry and other private business (know) … if they make an investment now, it will see a payoff later on,” he said.

“We have so much competition internationally that we have to invest in our kids — if we don’t, we won’t be as in demand as we are in most field of science and technology.”

When Kubinak returns from his extracurricular activities, he says, his main priority is always to spread what he has learned.

“My first order of business is to get the information to my colleagues,” he said.