A coalition of industry leaders have joined forces with Discovery Education to invigorate the culture of STEM education in K–12 schools nationwide. The STEM Careers Coalition provides educators, students, and parents with a go-to digital space to explore the innovative and highly rewarding potential of STEM, through dynamic career profiles, hands-on learning resources, and up-to-the-minute industry news. STEM Career Explorations give students living proof of the many ways they can turn STEM skills into career success, with no-cost, standards-aligned multimedia resources that are adaptable to a variety of learning environments. With a focus on tackling the lack of diversity and unequal access to opportunity in the STEM workforce pipeline, investments from the corporate community are changing the education experience of millions.
This STEM careers initiative addresses the STEM workforce and inspiration gap by bridging industry and classrooms at unprecedented scale. It is powered by a coalition of corporate leaders and Discovery Education—a trusted curriculum partner committed to equity in education, serving public, private charter, homeschool, and tribal school students by leveraging the power of digital to close the access gap.
A five-pronged approach to this initiative includes meaningful, direct investment in under-resourced K-12 schools to provide curricular resources and professional development. Career profiles provide a destination for students to connect the dots from the classroom to careers. Multi-sector thought leadership joins forces together to elevate a national STEM conversation and puts an implementation plan in place. Employee engagement mobilizes the current STEM workforce at scale to inspire and connect with tomorrow’s employees through engaging classroom experiences. Finally, harnessing quantitative and qualitative insights impacts, optimizes, and measures STEM engagement and career awareness.
Student activities engage K–12 students in the power of STEM innovation with a series of thought-provoking, ready-to-use activities that feature key STEM skills and a step-by guide for implementation. Parent resources include fun family activities that promote dynamic distance learning
using nothing more than common household items.
The STEM Careers Coalition is also featuring career spotlights that highlight individuals who have pivoted their skillset to meet the COVID-19 crisis head-on. The dynamic new “COVID-19 Solution Seekers” video series features an array of real-world content demonstrating the flexibility of STEM and amplifies how diverse STEM professionals across a variety of industries transform their work in response to COVID-19. Coalition partners–including Boeing, Microsoft, Chevron, American Petroleum Institute (API), Procter & Gamble (P&G), and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)–are joined by global healthcare leader Sanofi, along with other companies, contributing to the collection of COVID-related career profiles.
The STEM Careers Coalition website experienced a surge in activity from May through June 2020, with over 30,000 sessions seen on the website, in addition to over 28,000 new visitors. Engagement was seen through video views, achieving over 2,300 views, a 458.9% increase compared to the previous quarter. Engagement through downloads on the website was also successful, achieving over 7,100 resource downloads, which was a 352.8% increase compared to the previous quarter. Emails and newsletter communications during this time were especially lucrative. Emails from the STEM Careers Coalition received a 18.7% click-through-rate and newsletters received a 15% click-through rate, immensely surpassing the industry benchmark of a 2.9% click-through rate (https://mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks/).
