 STEM Day at the Fair goers enjoy a wide range of hands-on STEM activities offered by awesome exhibitor partners.
STEM Day at the Iowa State Fair offers opportunities to experience engaging, hands-on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) activities facilitated by organizations across the state and to learn about the many possibilities of how STEM touches our lives daily. The event will be held this year on the last day of the fair Sunday, August 18, from 9AM to 6PM. It is a family-friendly event on the Grand Concourse, hosted by the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council.
After spending time on the Grand Concourse, take a seat at the MidAmerican Energy Stage to enjoy stage performances throughout the day presented by Blank Park Zoo, Wartburg College, the Grout Museum and Insect Zoo. Enjoy a special high-altitude balloon launch around 11AM on the Grand Concourse by the NASA Iowa Space Grant Consortium, Iowa 4-H Youth Development and Make 2 Innovate Lab.
The times and descriptions of the stage acts this year are:
Blank Park Zoo – 10:00AM at the MidAmerican Energy Stage
Discover the wonders of the natural world! Connect with a few of the Zoo's Ambassador Animals and learn how you can take action for wildlife everywhere!
NASA Iowa Space Grant Consortium, Iowa 4-H Youth Development, and Make 2 Innovate Lab – 11:00AM on the Grand Concourse
Watch as we see what fun items can be launched within a high-altitude balloon payload!
Wartburg College – 1:00PM at the MidAmerican Energy Stage
When we think of Iowa, many people think of cornfields, cattle and chickens; yet there are other forms of agriculture between our rivers. Wartburg College has herpetology for those individuals who enjoy cold-blooded and scaly creatures. Dr. Bechtel (Bec) will bring turtles, tortoises and snakes to provide a glimpse of the STEM research and animal husbandry happening on campus.
Grout Museum – 2:00PM at the MidAmerican Energy Stage
Mad Mixture. Witness a combination of science experiments regarding temperature, as well as others easily done at home.
Insect Zoo – 3:00PM at the MidAmerican Energy Stage
Learn about our multi-legged friends and why they are important for us and our Earth! Come learn about tarantulas, scorpions, whip scorpions, millipedes, hissing cockroaches, beetles, walking sticks, praying mantis and centipedes.
 Iowa STEM is seeking exemplary STEM programs for the 2025-2026 STEM Scale-Up Program menu.
Developers and deliverers of exemplary STEM programs are invited to compete for scaling their program(s) throughout the State of Iowa. The annual scaling of selected programs to educators across Iowa is supported by a generous annual* appropriation by the Iowa legislature alongside private sector investments. A complete profile of Iowa’s STEM Scale-Up initiative, including past programs scaled, may be accessed here.
The intention of the STEM Scale-Up Program is to bring world-class STEM education opportunities to all learners, especially those historically underserved. The intent is to seed, jumpstart or introduce to Iowans little-known and exemplary lessons, curriculum, enrichment activities and other programs proven to inspire and educate preK-12 students in both formal and informal settings. For the academic year 2025-2026 the proposal window opens on August 5, 2024. The proposal form and review rubric may be previewed here.
Below is a list of priority fields for scaling in Iowa. Proposals for other topical fields will also be considered.
- Agricultural science
- Applied engineering
- Computational thinking
- Ecology and energy education
- Mathematics, especially applied and contextual to students’ lives
- STEM and arts integration
- STEM careers (especially with local context) – ideally an element of any STEM Scale-Up Program proposal
- STEM programming that integrates into existing curriculum
- Transdisciplinary (integrated) S-T-E-M
Please direct questions regarding Iowa’s STEM Scale-Up Program to info@IowaSTEM.org or 515-271-2403.
* The FY2025 level of state investment for STEM Scale-Up is approximately $3.4 million. That figure is subject to change annually.
 A student engages with learning tools provided by the 2024-25 STEM Scale-Up Program provider Robo Wunderkind.
The Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council is pleased that nearly 112,000 Iowa youth throughout the state will benefit from STEM Scale-Up Programming in the 2024-2025 academic year. Participants express greater interest in STEM education and STEM careers. These students, historically, outperform peers on the Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress (ISASP) as compared to students who do not participate. For these reasons, the STEM Scale-Up Program has become a signature STEM Council initiative.
Close to 1,500 educators are expected to engage with STEM Scale-Up Programs offering high-quality STEM education and learning experiences to PreK-12 students in-school, afterschool and in other educational settings. Educators were able to apply for one or more programs to provide students with a diverse range of STEM units and activities during the academic year with topics that support mastery of core STEM content through project-based learning, spanning agriculture, architecture, artificial intelligence, engineering, robotics, technology and more. Educator training for those awarded with this year’s STEM Scale-Up Program will begin this summer.
Awardees are selected by regional STEM advisory boards guided by regional STEM managers. Selection criteria is based on need, student diversity, geographic location, geographic distribution and plans to sustain the program, among other factors. Since the STEM Scale-Up Program launched in 2012, funding from the Iowa legislature has enabled more than one million PreK-12 Iowa students to participate in STEM Scale-Up Programs.
Annually, the STEM Council has invited top PreK-12 STEM programs to scale across Iowa for in the aptly named “STEM Scale-Up Program.” The 14 evidence-based programs for the 2024-2025 academic year were selected from over 80 proposals based on the STEM Council’s strategic priorities that are aligned to workforce needs: agricultural science, computational thinking, early learning, mathematics, ecology and energy education, STEM and arts integration, STEM careers, integration into existing curriculum and transdisciplinary learning. A team of expert reviewers also considered evidence of effect, scalability, diversity impact, cost-benefit ratio, sustainability and alignment with Iowa’s academic standards when selecting the final menu of STEM Scale-Up Programs listed below.
- All About Balance
- Artificial Intelligence for K-12 Educators
- Blackbird Code
- Derivita Math Program
- Exploring and Connecting to Iowa’s Agriculture
- FUSE Studio
- Investigating Everyday Phenomena
- Making Innovative STEM Connections (MISC)
- Positive Physics, Chemistry, Physical Science, Biology, Environmental Science & Engineering
- Robo Wunderkind STEM Program
- Spatial Vis: The First Stepin Design for Engineering and Technology
- Storytime STEM-backs
- Teachley Math
- Turing Tumble
Additional details on these STEM Scale-Up Programs can be found here
View the full list of 2024-2025 STEM Scale-Up Program recipients here
 STEM Teacher Extern Katy Fleming shares about her experience at Pella Corporation Along with Pella Engineer Aaron Ryan.
STEM teacher externs, workplace hosts, program mentors and more gathered this month at the STEM Teacher Externship Forum on DMACC’s Ankeny Campus. There was much to celebrate this year as the STEM Teacher Externship Program marks its 16th summer in Iowa. This summer 79 externs were placed with 67 unique workplace hosts for six-week long experiences that connect teachers to working professionals in local workplaces, giving them the opportunity to gain valuable STEM-related work experiences to be applied in the classroom.
The Externships Forum is held every year as a way for teachers, hosts and other program partners to gather and share the experience, learn from each other and discuss how they will bring the learning back to the students in their classroom.
“I see trees in a whole different way, and I see, like urban planning and civil engineering in a whole new light that I would not have if I didn't open my mind up to the externship program,” said CJ Aldape Sandmeyer, a math teacher at Ankeny Centennial High School who externed with the City of Des Moines’ Forestry Division this summer.
At the summer forum, attendees participated in breakout sessions designed to facilitate discussion between teachers with similar externship experiences and similar teaching content areas. In addition, teachers also heard from STEM Council Executive Committee Member and DMACC President, Dr. Robert Denson as well as Keynote Speaker, Jason Lang. Lang, a Cedar Falls High School science teacher, was the Externships Program Coordinator from 2009-2023 and spent 2024 as a STEM Teacher Extern with the Tallgrass Prairie Center. The day was capped off with a tour of the DMACC Greenhouses led by 2024 Workplace Host and DMACC Horticulturalist Christina Riessen.
The benefits of the STEM Teacher externship program reach beyond sharing STEM knowledge as educators are reconnected to the excitement of learning. “I think you’ll feel rejuvenated and excited,” said Micaela Sciarrotta, a 4th grade teacher at Aurora Heights Elementary in Newton. Sciarrotta externed with Jasper County Conservation this summer.
Aldape Sandmeyer has similar remarks about the program’s impact. “Working with another teacher in this program has definitely sparked my passion for education. Kind of reminded me as to why I wanted to go into it and made me really reflect on my own teaching practices,” he said.
The Externship Forum was a celebration of another awesome summer of Teacher Externships and a great way for teachers to begin the transition back to their classrooms. We look forward to STEM Teacher Externships 2025! For more information or to apply please visit the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council Website.
Iowa Governor's STEM Advisory Council
Iowa Department of Education
214 East Bartlett Hall
University of Northern Iowa
515-335-1531
info@iowa.gov
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