Iowa Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds was on campus Wed., September 19, 2012, for a STEM Conversations meeting in the Instructional Center at 1:30 p.m. Reynolds was accompanied by Ben Allen, president of the University of Northern Iowa. The two have been traveling the state educating the general public and answering questions about STEM.
Reynolds and Allen spoke about the governor's effort to bring attention to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). In 2010, the Iowa legislature appropriated $4.7 million to the STEM effort. Since that time, six regional hubs were established across the state. Each hub will receive $500,000 and then the regional hubs are encouraged to work with business and industry for additional funds. The funds will be used to award Scale-Up Projects in K-12 school districts. According to Reynolds, almost 900 applications for Scale-Up Projects have been received.
Reynolds said the STEM effort is important because in Iowa we are "not reaching all the students and not getting all students to the point where they can be globally competitive.
Allen summarized the effort by saying, "We have to do a better job of teaching math, science, technology, and engineering."
The southwest Iowa hub for STEM is located on the Southwestern Community College campus. Beth Kulow is the regional manager. To learn more about STEM, please visit the Iowa STEM Web site.
