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Cover of report entitled "Building on Iowa's Vision for Computer Science Education"

Amplifying the "T" in STEM

Folks at the Iowa Capitol get it: computer science is right there with reading, writing and arithmetic when it comes to essentials for thriving in modern society. Whether at work, at home or at play, computer technology permeates every aspect of our lives.

Quiet of Summer Belies STEM Professional Development Panoply

In the heart of the dog days of summer, thousands of Iowa teachers are gearing up to bring top-drawer STEM education to their students this fall. The 2017-18 Scale-Up programmers have fanned out across the state to equip and train in-school and out-of-school teachers in the latest and greatest STEM learning platforms.

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.

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.

Five ways Iowa’s STEM Scale-Up Program works

Drop in to just about any school across Iowa this week and somebody’s bringing a world-class STEM experience to students through the five-year-old STEM Scale-Up Program initiative of the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council.

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. Yet, a program offered on the 2016-17 STEM Scale-Up Program menu is making it common for high school students to be the new, young minds behind these innovations. It’s called, “FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC).”

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.

Seventh grade Kinglsey-Pierson Middle School students

PowerTeaching Math scales to power excitement for the “M” in STEM

Creating student-centered classrooms is at the heart of STEM. Fortunately, several thousand classrooms and out-of-school environments will experience this type of learning through Iowa’s STEM Scale-Up Program.

Waterloo training for Making STEM Connections

Hundreds trained at summer professional development through the STEM Scale-Up Program

About one-sixth of Iowa’s K-12 students are about to experience the best of STEM at the hands of nearly 1,700 educators trained at more than 60 STEM Scale-Up Program professional development workshops this summer and fall.

STEM Council’s signature STEM Scale-Up Program nets results

Tulips and daffodils are not the only things blooming this spring across Iowa—better test scores and higher interest have blossomed among more than 100,000 young learners who have taken part in one of 14 current STEM projects awarded to educators in and out of school this year through the STEM Scale-Up Program.

Sixth-graders at Lewis Central Middle School in Council Bluffs enjoy Engineering is Elementary, one of 11 programs offered to educators and their students on the 2016-17 STEM Scale-Up Program menu.

Scaling the best of STEM to young Iowans

The launch of the STEM Scale-Up Program is the most significant annual undertaking by the STEM Council’s operations team. This month marks the start of a rollout of the best of STEM to more than 100,000 Iowan students with the support of a couple thousand educators.

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