Chamber's STEM Initiative Mentioned in Congressional Testimony
On January 20th Tom Donohue, president of the US Chamber, sited the Knoxville Chamber's STEM initiative that will pair 500 middle and high school teachers with area businesses as an example of outstanding business' efforts to support education across the nation. The comments came during a hearing on the reauthorization of the America Competes Act.
Read the text of Donohue's testimony here.
The Chamber initiative is a partnership with The Knox County Schools to provide a STEM (science, technology, engineering or math) employer experience to all middle and high school math and science teachers in Knox County Schools.
This effort will allow 500 teachers to learn what skills are needed as a STEM professional and how to apply the concepts they are teaching in daily classroom lessons. This is an incredible opportunity for these teachers to learn directly from employers.
This program is being led by Vols4STEM, a collaborative effort involving several area organizations and individuals, including the Knoxville Chamber, American Society of Civil Engineers, Tennessee Society of Professional Engineers, Knox County Schools, Oak Ridge Economic Partnership, and Innovation Valley Inc. The mission of Vols4STEM is to facilitate collaboration among area STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) professionals and STEM educators and students, primarily through the Vols4STEM website, www.vols4stem.org.
