Iowa’s STEM Council Enters the Scholarship Business

Iowa STEM Council Scholarships

New supports for Iowa’s outstanding STEM teachers are coming from the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council in the form of scholarships. Council leaders determined that we need to take immediate action on two fronts: (1) help produce more teachers in the high demand K-12 STEM fields; and (2) help those presently in the field to keep up with rapid advancements in STEM.

Beginning in Spring, 2022, professionals in STEM fields such as actuaries who wish to teach math, engineers who want to teach physics, zookeepers interested in biology teaching, or software developers inclined toward computer classrooms can now compete for scholarships to get there. The quick route to be supported by the Council is the Regents Alternative Pathway to Intern Licensure (RAPIL), an efficient series of online courses followed by a paid internship (https://iowateacherintern.org/). A coinciding marketing campaign is intended to infuse the RAPIL pipeline with lots more STEM career transitioners to teaching.

For those currently teaching STEM classes, knowledge is growing so rapidly it can be difficult to keep up. Life science is being transformed by CRISPR technology. Data analytics takes math to new heights. Lithium puts chemistry in our cars. Python is the new choice for coding. The quantum is transforming physics. Thus, the STEM Council in spring 2022 introduces Latest Information for Teachers (LIfT) scholarships that cover the tuition of teachers taking an update course in these fields at a local community college or university. Ten educators per semester will be selected for tuition coverage along with license renewal credits upon successful course completion and reporting of new additions to their classes as a result.

The link for both the RAPIL STEM scholarship and the Latest Information for Educations scholarship is www.IowaSTEM.org/scholarships. Please help spread the word. Send any questions or comments to Info@IowaSTEM.org

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