When Mary Elizabeth "Betsy" Glass learned last December that she and her top research students at Canterbury School were invited to the inaugural Singapore International Science Challenge, she snapped into action, scoring $900 round-trip tickets for everyone on Singapore Air at Orbitz.com.

If teachers from the other three U.S. schools asked to compete had acted as quickly, students from Canterbury, a private Fort Myers school for pre-K through 12th grades, might have had some American company when they faced high achievers from around the world in May.

Glass thinks that her students were singled out due to Canterbury's past performance in science competitions. What the modest and award-winning teacher and director of science research won't admit is that she is the school's award magnet.

In her 28 years at Canterbury, Glass has groomed and mentored more winners of the annual Intel International Science and Engineering Fair than any other teacher. In fact, she and four of her students flew straight from this year's Intel contest in New Mexico to Kennedy Airport in New York City, where they met up with the other five students for the flight to Singapore.

To prepare for the contest, Glass ran the students through practice sessions and organized a mock competition for parents and teachers. She did some homework of her own, studying integrative science and taking an online graduate class in critical thinking. She also ordered matching blue blazers for the kids, arranged for them to take their advanced placement exams in New Mexico and had their homework e-mailed to Singapore.

It was especially hard for Glass to miss her students' performances as they competed in oral and research contests while she was being shuttled to discussions, seminars and gardens. "It was like a mother not being there if something happened to [her] child, but I knew [the students] were in very good hands," she says.

She didn't find out that teams from Israel and Singapore won the event until the awards ceremony. Sitting with the other teachers, she cheered when a Canterbury student came in third place for his research project and when another got a first-place peer award for his poster. "To me that was good," she says. Despite the hours of preparation, she didn't mind such modest recognition.

"Just to go there is an honor. You're not in research to win an award; you're there to find out the unknown," says Glass.

Charged by her experience and armed with lesson plans from Singapore, Glass returned to her office after the school year ended to develop a high school course at Canterbury using the integrative-sciences format, in which students incorporate math, biology, chemistry and physics to tackle problems.

She's also determined to set up a video-conferencing system at Canterbury so she and her students can communicate with their new friends in Singapore and other countries, and collaborate on a bioethics project.

That's in addition to teaching two advanced-placement courses and mentoring about 40 students doing independent research, fielding late-night calls and e-mails, and chauffeuring students to labs and classes after a 15-hour school day.

When a student doesn't have money to travel to a science fair or competition, she has helped find the funds. When they go off to college, she's taken in their pets.

"She definitely helped shape the direction I chose," says Eden Haverfield, a former student and the only two-time grand winner at the Intel competition.

Haverfield, now 29, is a fellow at the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Chicago and Glass' "biggest fan." The two keep in touch, and when Glass talks about Haverfield's success, you would think she was bragging about her own child.

In fact, most of her limited personal time is spent visiting former students. She caught up with Haverfield in Oxford, England, and frequently travels to Italy to see a 35-year-old Canterbury graduate she calls her "Italian daughter."

These days, Glass also has less time for her night job as a licensed mental health counselor in private practice. However, she'll get her passport out again this summer when she travels to China as part of a delegation from the American Counseling Association.

A former cheerleader, athlete and amateur auto racer, the Ph.D. educator won't disclose her age, citing Deepak Chopra's theory: "As soon as you think that you're a certain age, you're limiting yourself."

She's thought about what it would be like to retire to her favorite place of all, the mountains of Bellagio, Italy, overlooking Lake Como. She just can't imagine leaving the science program that she built and nurtured for nearly 30 years, a program that has educators halfway around the world taking notice of a small, private school in Southwest Florida.