Program could help teachers put STEM in their summer


  • October 22, 2015
  • /   Shannon Nickinson
  • /   education

Gov. Rick Scott this week touted $1 million in funding in his proposed budget for a paid summer residency program for teachers to see how STEM works in the working world.

STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — is the cross-subject discipline that gets the lion’s share of the discussion in education circles these days. The effort would expand a program piloted in Palm Beach County last year, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

Last summer, Palm Beach County received a grant to offer this "externship" program to seven teachers, including Julius Guerra, who teaches information technology at South Tech Academy in Boynton Beach. He worked with FPL during the summer and said he got to learn about all aspects of how the company uses technology, and even go to do some coding with FPL employees.

While teachers are sometimes criticized for teaching skills they learned years ago, Guerra said the experience with FPL helped him ensure the material he was teaching is relevant to today's workforce.

""We hear that we're training students for jobs that don't even exist yet. I got to see some of those jobs being created," said Guerra, who taught last year at Boynton Beach High..

There are 44 companies that have signed on to be externship partners in this program. Two are in the Pensacola area — Gulf Power and the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. Bay State Cable Ties and Fort Walton Machining also are on the list.

Who is participating in the STEM Residency Program?

Amskills, Arthrex, Apex Technology, Azimuth Technology, Bay State Cable Ties, B&I, Carlisle Interconnect Technologies, Creative Sign Designs, Coastal Cloud, D3 Glass, Duke Energy, Eastern Architectural Systems, Embraer, Entertainment Metals, Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, Florida Power & Light Company, Fort Walton Machining, Inc., Global Tech LED, GSC Systems, Gulf Power, Co., Harris Corporation, Haynes Corporation, Heat Pipe Technology, Hoerbiger Corporation of America, Inc., ICTC, ITG Technologies, Kaman Aerostructures, Lockheed Martin, Marine Concepts/JRL Ventures, Metal Essence, MiTek USA, Monin, Northrop Grumman, PharmaWorks, SAFT America, Shaw Development, Southern Manufacturing Technologies, Storm Smart, Structure Medical LLC, Survice Engineering Company, Timbar Packaging & Display, Vac-Con Inc., and Vistakon.

Jennifer Grove, community development manager for Gulf Power, said her company was thrilled to sign on to the effort. And she hopes it gets funded this year.

A similar effort failed to earn funding from lawmakers in the budget process last year.

“It is important for our teachers to really understand how these academic areas that they are passionate about are applied in the workplace,” Grove said. “It allows them to provide more hands-on instruction to the students.”

Groves said whether or not the state funding materializes, Gulf Power will try to do some version of the program in the summer.

The company hosted a day for math and energy careers for middle and high school teachers last school year that had a similar goal.

Grove said the teachers met people from line technicians to the PhD’s who create rate calculation formulas, all in an effort show them how math works for Gulf Power every day.

The utility company is a logical fit for such an effort, as is the IHMC, with its international reputation in the robotics world.

Julie Sheppard, general counsel at the IHMC, said the Institute was happy to sign on to an effort that could get kids and teachers excited about what science can offer.

“We want to make those science nerds when they are 10, 11 and 12,” Sheppard said.

Sheppard said for a long time, science role models were wild-haired, mad scientist types.

“We want it to be Peter Neuhaus and Jerry Pratt, and all of these really cool women that you can be,” Sheppard said. “Teachers are our best advocates.”

The kind teamwork on display at a place like IHMC is important to broadening the appeal of science in the workplace. In any one team, Sheppard notes, you’ll have programmers, scientists, multimedia people and engineers working together.

Can these be the only two companies in the Pensacola metro area where math is an everyday fact of life?

I doubt it.

So here is hoping that some lucky lawmaker takes this up as a cause worth funding.

And so too, here is the to hope that if the program gets off the ground, more businesses see its worth. And want in on the action.

Because students in the Pensacola area need help in understanding how science and math apply to their world. Last year, 46 percent of Escambia eighth graders earned proficient scores in science on state standardized tests.

In Santa Rosa, it was 63 percent.

In state test results for 2014, 46 percent of Escambia eighth graders were proficient in math; 70 percent of Santa Rosa eighth-graders were proficient.

Scores like that won’t get our children through the workplace that awaits them.

And if they can’t get those jobs done, we all pay the price.

 
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