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104 Doing Business in Connecticut | 2014 The connecticut science center has become a hub for sTem (science, technology, engineering and math) teacher training and materials. Industry sPOtLIGHt › By Daniel Kline W hile Connecticut's higher education institutions are producing knowl- edge workers for today's economy, the state's public and private K-12 system is focused on preparing youngsters for the economy of the future. To accomplish that goal, the state's leadership from the governor on down to the state Department of Education has made STEM education a priority. But what is STEM? It stands for science, technology, engineering and mathemat- ics. ose four core subject areas have been identified by business leaders as top priorities for the state and the nation's economy. In fact, employment in the STEM fields is projected to grow 9.6 percent from 2010 to 2020. Scientific method With the goal of sparking young minds with an interest in science and technology, the state now has a growing number of magnet schools focused on STEM. One recent addition to this group is the public Charles H. Barrows STEM Academy in North Windham, which opened its doors in the fall of 2013. By the fall of 2015, the school is expected to enroll 600 students in preschool through eighth grade from Windham and surrounding towns. e school is housed in a new, state-of-the-art, 83,000-square-foot building and includes classrooms outfitted with the latest in technology. Holly Harrick, STEM coordinator at Barrows, describes STEM "as a way of think- ing about instruction that meets the needs for 21st Century learners." Harrick actually got her start in STEM education through the Connecticut Science Center, which is located in downtown Hart- ford and serves as a sort of hub for STEM education in the state. e center, which opened its doors in 2009, has not only served as a resource for learning through its exhibits, but has taken an active role in bringing STEM to schools statewide. is has included active partnerships with a number of school districts including Hartford, which has the Annie Fisher STEM Magnet School, and Barrows in Windham. e museum also hosts an annual STEM conference and additional training through its Joyce D. and Andrew J. Mandell Academy for Teachers. In 2012, the science center began offer- ing STEM curriculum units for use in Con- necticut's middle schools created in partner- ship with the Hartford School District and United Technologies Corp. e curriculum is an engineering-focused program that includes classroom activities and kits taking students through the sequential process of problem identification, design, building models, testing, data analysis, design revi- sion, re-testing and communicating results. Each STEM program package provides teachers with several weeks of classroom activities that culminate in addressing a real- world problem. e packages prepare stu- dents for a final research project with a series of activities and tasks that progressively explore the basic scientific concepts needed to solve the larger problem. For example, be- fore producing a proposal for a new elevator design, students learn about pulleys, friction and simple machines. As the state's K-12 system begins to emphasize STEM more and more, the state has also invested in STEM at the college level through a program at the University of Con- necticut called Next Generation. Connecticut's Next Generation law provided $1.5 billion over 10 years to expand STEM educational opportunities, research and innovation at UConn. e program's priorities include: • Hiring 259 new UConn faculty (of which 200 will be in STEM fields); • Enrolling an additional 6,580 talented undergraduate students; • Building STEM facilities to house materials science, physics, biology, en- gineering, cognitive science, genomics and related disciplines; • Constructing new STEM teaching laboratories; • Creating a premier STEM honors program; • Upgrading aging infrastructure to ac- commodate new faculty and students; With the state investment at UConn, and the growth of STEM curricula, thanks in part to efforts at the Connecticut Science Center, Harrick at Barrows said she has high hopes for STEM in the state, noting that she recently met with officials from the Vernon Public School District about using STEM throughout the town's schools. "ey want to take their whole school district and convert the middle and high schools into STEM schools," she said. ❑ In the lab Science and technology made a priority in CT schools Education & Research PHOTO/cOUrTesy