STEM Advisory Council members launched five working groups to make recommendations that will shape the future of STEM in Iowa.

STEM Council Strategic Planning Charts Future Course

Members of the STEM Advisory Council alongside academic, business, public policy and nonprofit leaders and passionate volunteers took part in a six-month quest to chart the course of STEM in Iowa.
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STEM BEST® Program model Ankeny Orbis spoke with school board members and administrators at the IASB Convention.

Growing STEM BEST ® Community Invites New Partners

The STEM BEST® Program continues to demonstrate momentum through growth and impact of the program in school districts across Iowa. Of 63 total STEM BEST® Program awards, there are a total of 58 models involving 83 school districts and more than 5,000 students that formed more than 1,300 workplace partnerships from 2014 to 2019.

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Bob Grant, a mathematics teacher at Storm Lake High School, completed a STEM Teacher Externship in 2019

Workplace Hosts Needed for Expanding Externships Program

Planning for the Iowa STEM Teacher Externships Program is gearing up for Summer 2020. Each summer, educators are matched with business hosts where they learn about career opportunities that use the skills students are learning in the classroom while addressing needs of local workplaces.

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Students at Kingsley-Pierson Elementary take part in the Computer Science is Elementary project

Compute to Compete: 12 Elementary Schools Blaze a Trail

Planning and implementation are well under way for 12 awarded Computer Science is Elementary schools, a joint project of the Iowa Department of Education and the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council. For Kingsley-Pierson Elementary, students are already building confidence in computer science after only a couple months of implementing computer science into the elementary curriculum.

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John Glenn Elementary Makerspace made possible through STEM Council Scale-Up Program

Scale-Up Starts a STEM Buzz at School

When John Glenn Elementary fourth grade teacher Jarrett Bertog applied for the STEM Scale-Up Program Making STEM Connections provided by the Science Center of Iowa, he was looking for ways to incorporate hands-on STEM learning into his classroom curriculum. He hadn’t imagined that it would turn into a school-wide makerspace. 

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