Assumption High School students experiencing virtual reality made possible by the STEM Best award.

Iowa STEM BEST Partner brings STEM reality to the classroom

“It’s making learning real.”

This is how Wendy Martin, a science teacher at Assumption High School in Davenport, talks about how her school’s STEM BEST partnership with VictoryVR, a Quad Cities technology company, is changing the way students learn about STEM careers.

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FIRST Tech Challenge teams compete at FIRST Championship in St. Louis.

Iowa well-represented at international FIRST® Championship

The ultimate goal for some 52,000 teams participating in FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) across the globe from 86 countries is navigating the qualifying pathway to reach the FIRST Championship held in St. Louis last month.

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Photo of NGA core team

STEM Prominent in Scaling Work-Based Learning

Since late 2015, a core team of Iowans representing a broad spectrum of agencies has been working in concert with peers in five other states to scale work-based learning (WBL) in high-demand fields.

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New STEM Council Members

Welcome, new STEM Council members

Under the leadership of STEM Council Co-Chairs Governor Kim Reynolds and Kemin Industries President and CEO Dr. Chris Nelson, the 47-member STEM Council represents key stakeholders from across the STEM interest spectrum, including education to industry and nonprofits to policy.

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Southwest Regional STEM Advisory Board

Top programs to STEM-spire at least 86,000 young Iowans come fall

April always comes with a fresh start—budding leaves, blooming flowers and for Iowa STEM, a new garden of programs ready to grow across Iowa for youth through the Iowa STEM Scale-Up Program.

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Mega-Meeting

Mega-meeting is a mega-hit for harnessing regional STEM success

Iowa’s STEM Council recognized early on the uniqueness of each of the six STEM regions they created in 2012. Their founding vision was that a statewide STEM program cannot thrive as a “one-size-fits-all” model.

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Teacher Leaders huddle over STEM

Now that teacher leaders and instructional coaches dwell in schools throughout the state, an ideal partnership is in the making between Iowa STEM and building-level lead instructors.

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Photo of Boone High School Student Jake Gourley

STEM Quality Pre-Apprenticeships to stoke Iowa’s workforce pipeline

For the majority of Iowans who did not enjoy an apprenticeship enroute to employment, the concept might conjure memories of Johnny Tremain from high school history class.

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Legislature processing computer science bill

Programming enthusiasts are watching the Iowa legislature, hoping they boot up a Computer Science bill (SF274) this session, but it will come down to a binary up or down before long.

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Family STEM festivals connect communities

A robust statewide STEM effort requires the support of all Iowans from parents, students and educators to city leaders, higher education experts and business and industry professionals.

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