The Iowa Governor's STEM Advisory Council selects some of the state and nation's high-quality programs and offers them to Iowa PreK-12 educators through the STEM Scale-Up Program. Each year, the STEM Council equips thousands of educators with STEM programs that inspire nearly 100,000 youth.
PreK-12 educators from the following organizations may apply;
- public and private PreK-12 schools
- childcare centers
- county conservation offices
- libraries
- county extension offices
- home school associations
- other formal and informal youth organizations who deliver STEM education programming for PreK-12 youth.
The Scale-Up Program menu for the 2023-2024 academic year includes the following thirteen programs:
Codelicious
Computer science that builds fluency in procedural,
computational and problem-solving skills while also learning the fundamentals of digital citizenship and safety.
Daily Math Fluency Centers
Targeted instructional kits use Math Talks and Number Strings to build numeracy skills in students who are struggling with core number concepts.
Discover Drones
Prepare students for emerging drone careers with lessons in engineering, iterative design and applied science that encourage collaborative learning.
Innovate-IT
Inquiry-based learning and curriculum to form an Innovate-IT club. The clubs use the program’s curriculum and activities to guide students in any or all of these three venues: robotics, game design, and cyber defense (cybersecurity).
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Grade Level: 9-12 (Standards listed on the Fact Sheet)
- Fact Sheet
Ioponics
An aquaponics system that easily incorporates biophilia with NGSS standards into a “living” learning setting. The model provides a hands-on, minds-on approach to STEM curriculum.
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Grade Level: PreK-12 (Standards listed on the Fact Sheet)
- Fact Sheet
Iowa Leadership in Engineering Design
Engineering design activities where students will observe, measure and record data, organize data, analyze data, draw conclusions, evaluate results and present their findings – experiences that will prepare students for all STEM careers.
Positive Physics and Chemistry
An engaging, online physics and chemistry lesson and problem bank. The site was designed to be accessible to students on any level from basic to AP.
Python for the BBC micro:bit
Bring text-based coding into the classroom and make code come off the screen with the BBC micro:bit.
STEM Cart: K-12+Schoolwide STEM Solution
Youth will build, experiment and redesign; learning from their successes and failures; and growing their understanding with their designs.
STEM Innovator
An app-based virtual platform for students to document STEM competencies as they innovate solutions to everyday problems and collaborate with peers and business and industry partners.
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Grade Level: 6-12 (Standards listed on the Fact Sheet)
- Fact Sheet
Storytime STEM-packs + Computer Science
Incorporate age-appropriate STEM+C concepts into children’s programming. Children collaboratively explain phenomena or solve the problem, thereby making sense of the STEM concept.
Tiny Techies
Youth will learn key computer science skills without being in front of a computer. Students will learn computational thinking, problem-solving skills, creative thinking and collaboration - all skills that will help them as they grow and prepare for jobs that don’t yet exist.
WaterWorks Engineering and Investigating the Properties of Water
Open-ended experiences that capitalize on children’s natural interest in water and grow their skill in close observation. Students master the tools of reading, writing and mathematics to communicate about their STEM learning.
