For the lucky few who have the opportunity to visit the White House, most only get as far as the tour. When science instructor Angela Bergman visited Washington, D.C. in July she received something far greater: a handshake from the President of the United States.

Bergman won the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. This state award is the highest honor a teacher can receive because it is administered by order of the President. This award allowed Bergman the opportunity to shake hands with the President, as well as meet other members of the cabinet, the director of the National Science Foundation, industry leaders, and policy makers.

Although all of these people were very important, Bergman found meeting the other 108 award recipients like her to be just as cool.

“You are always looking for the next ‘what can you do to help kids?’ and all 108 of these teachers had great ideas on how to improve the classroom,” Bergman said.

Although the award was self nominated, Bergman was pressured for two years by the Nebraska State Coordinator of Science to apply. Bergman first applied for the award in January of 2013 but received the news that she was a finalist in July of 2015.

Bergman is now on the advisory committee for an organization called 100Kin10 that trains the next generation of teachers to be great STEM instructors.

“One of the coolest things I experienced was going to the White House Visitor Center and looking at historical pictures and realizing that I had taken pictures in the same room as all of these historical people,” Bergman said.

Although she has never won anything like this before, Bergman is looking forward to using the gift bag she received to help improve her classroom and using different teaching resources to help her students learn better.

“My dream as a teacher was to meet the president, and with this award I was able to fulfill my dream,” Bergman said.