The Dayton Regional STEM Center, a subsidiary of the Montgomery County Educational Service Center, has been recognized by a prestigious national group.
The local STEM Center — an integral part of a STEM ecosystem known as DO STEM (Dayton, Ohio STEM) — has been recognized for its efforts by the national group TIES (Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM).
“With the ecosystem, we’re trying to make connections with education systems, industry partners, etc.,” said Liz Wolfe-Eberly, director of Dayton Regional STEM Center. “We want to involve more industry partners to connect with our teachers and our schools.”
The goal of the STEM Center is to provide high quality professional development for teachers to understand STEM education and how to implement it in classrooms from preschool through high school in all subject areas. It's also focused on equity efforts and ensuring under-served populations — such as females, minorities, low-income and military families — get access too.
Wolfe-Eberly said for many of the issues facing our society today — such as the pandemic, cybersecurity and climate change — the solutions can be found in STEM. And those entering a STEM field can often find higher wages and more in-demand job opportunities.
“There’s no reason the next generation of innovators shouldn’t be coming from here in the Dayton region,” she said. “We can create individuals that can solve problems facing our region and country.”
Wolfe-Eberly said the DO STEM ecosystem is engaged with many industry partners and educational institutions. But there remain many business relationships left to be forged.
“We want STEM businesses or organizations to reach out to us to talk about different careers,” Wolfe-Eberly said.
Upcoming opportunities for the business community to engage with DO STEM include:
- A virtual Future Fair, a career fair in May, in which industry partners will create virtual booths to highlight different STEM career paths.
- A second, in-person Future Fair is tentatively planned for November at the Air Force Museum.
Wolfe-Eberly said the STEM Center offers a five-month STEM Fellows program for local teachers. The professional development pairs teachers with volunteers from industry partners or local universities, such as Wright-Patterson Air Force Base; Air Force Institute of Technology; and Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
“It’s a great opportunity for industry partners to learn more about education,” Wolfe-Eberly said, “And so that our teachers can learn the real-world skills that students need to have in the industry; how businesses actually tackle problems.”
The STEM Center also has outreach opportunities for students. A “Science Saturdays” program for elementary-aged students has continued during the pandemic with videos on Facebook or YouTube.
The Dayton Regional STEM Center is also one of three national hubs for the Department of Defense (DoD) STEM Education Consortium, which involves dozens of national partners. The other hubs are in San Diego and Baltimore areas.
“We were selected because it’s important for us to prepare the next generation of DoD STEM workforce,” Wolfe-Eberly said. “With AFRL here in our backyard, so much of the research is done here (in Dayton) and there are many opportunities available for students.”
