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Teachers in the Hazelwood School District (HSD) took part in a professional development opportunity to help them better engage students in the high demand fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

HSD teachers spent two weeks over the summer in a series of intense workshops and eye-opening tours of major corporations as part of the STEMpact Third Annual Teacher Quality (TQ) Initiative. The 20 HSD teachers were among 106 from districts throughout the metropolitan St. Louis area who want to entice more students to consider STEM careers at earlier stages in their education.

STEMpact, a local collaborative partnership aimed at improving STEM education, is funded by companies such as Ameren, Boeing, Emerson, Express Scripts Foundation, Monsanto and Sigma-Aldrich. Through the real-world applications of STEM disciplines, the program assists educators in raising student test scores, identifying STEM-capable learners, and breaking cultural stereotypes. The TQ Initiative program is free to school districts that qualify.

In addition to the workshops at Washington University in St. Louis, the partner corporations also held sessions at their respective sites. For example, at Sigma-Aldrich, the teachers participated in a question & answer teleconference with Dr. Marian McKee, principal scientist and microbiologist with BioReliance laboratory services in Rockville, Md. After the chat, the teachers went to the laboratory to conduct several science experiments involving energy transfer, chemical reactions and properties of matter.

STEMpact Project Manager Deborah Holmes says the corporate support is crucial to the success of the program.

“It’s amazing to see the support from St. Louis companies who understand the importance of educating the future work force in STEM topics. STEM jobs have grown at a rate three times faster than non-STEM jobs in the past decade and we just expect that growth to continue,” said Holmes. “We currently have a wait list, which tells us the program is gaining in popularity.”

Kathleen Naudi, a science teacher at Northwest Middle School, says the field trips to the corporate partners were a real eye-opener for her.

“It’s amazing how much technology has changed and is changing in the workplace,” Naudi said. “The number of those jobs that are going un-filled because there aren’t enough qualified candidates is staggering.”

Following the two-week STEM TQ Institute, STEMpact provides additional training consisting of three STEM professional development days and six afterschool STEM professional development sessions throughout the school year. Results show that the past two years of the program have already made a difference. Data from 2013 shows that students whose teachers participated in STEM TQ were scoring higher on Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) tests in these areas. “I am looking forward to sharing this information so they can gain new insights into helping all students decide on the most fulfilling path in their professional lives,” she said.

North Middle School science teacher Eve Hindrichs plans to include the career connections component of the STEM initiatives to her classroom instruction.

“I want students to see all of the jobs that are currently out there that they might not have thought of before,” Hindrichs said.

The HSD teachers  who participated in the STEM TQ Initiative were:  Central Middle – Karis Jackson, Joseph Williams, Joshua Pearce; North Middle – Eve Hindrichs, Deette Brower, Cheryl Ely, Vera Maddox, Tracy Gray-Morris; Northwest Middle – Kathleen Naudi, Christina Young, Karen Ross; West Middle – Izetta Wiggs, Laura Ragsdale, Stephanie Mann, Rebecca Cook, LaTanya Buckner, Rosalinda Williams, Deborah Heisler; Southeast Middle – Tanya Cross, Marsha Wallace

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