News

High school students from Saint Albert Catholic Schools, a STEM BEST Program model, code with robotics.

STEM Council’s STEM BEST Program to Emphasize High Demand Job Sectors This Fall

MVP for Iowa STEM: Cindy Dietz and Rockwell Collins

With the help of January’s MVP for Iowa STEM, Rockwell Collins, an aerospace engineering company in Cedar Rapids, Cindy Dietz, its director of external relations, has used her expertise to send Iowa STEM soaring to new heights.

Highland Elementary students coding in Waterloo

Iowa STEM amped up on Java and other computer science tools

Generation Z is type-cast as technology native—born with iPads in their cribs, raised with smartphones clutched in their grip, educated on digital global blackboards and bathed in WiFi waves connecting their cars, TVs and toasters. They’re accomplished consumers of technology.

FRC Team in West Delaware County Community School District

Putting STEM first in the FIRST Robotics Competition

You might think it takes an Einstein-like mind to build a robot from scratch—or at least some years studying the craft.

Grant Wood Elementary School receives Code Iowa Technology Award

Thousands learn to program through Code Iowa

The room is eerily quiet. Students’ eyes are glued to their computers, geared up with headphones and a mouse to take on the challenge. Suddenly, a young girl’s hands go up in the air as she yells, “Yes! I did it!”

That’s the “Hour of Code.”

MVP for Iowa STEM: Steve Triplett

Of 32 U.S. states where more than half of their graduates take the ACT, Iowa has the highest percentage of students meeting the STEM benchmark.

Future student at John Deere plant in Des Moines

Iowa D.N.R. and U.S. D.o.L. invest in Iowa STEM

Two Iowa STEM programs just got a major boost thanks to grants totaling $250,000.

Making STEM Connections at Milford Memorial Library

“Making STEM Connections” in and out of classrooms

STEM learning often takes place beyond school classrooms. Other outstanding venues where kids learn STEM include museums, camping trips with their scout troop, at the zoo or on a 4-H outing and certainly among the book stacks at libraries.

STEM BEST® Partners triple in two years

Around this same time in 2014, the STEM Council first welcomed the inaugural five STEM BEST® (Businesses Engaging Students and Teachers) Partners to the team.