 Visitors during STEM Day at the Fair in 2024 learn about Newtonian fluids though an oobleck experiment.
STEM Day at the Iowa State Fair is fast approaching! Mark your calendars for Sunday, August 17, 2025 and join us on the Iowa State Fairground’s Grand Concourse from 9 a.m. to 6 pm. to experience engaging, hands-on science, technology, engineering and mathematics activities facilitated by organizations across the state. This family-friendly event hosted by the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council at the Iowa Department of Education is free with admission to the fair and offers opportunities to learn about the many possibilities of how STEM touches our lives each and every day. A special program will take place near the tent around noon.
In addition to activities on the Grand Concourse, the MidAmerican Energy Stage will feature STEM stage performances throughout the day. Partners from Blank Park Zoo, Wartburg College, the Grout Museum and WOI-TV’s Local 5 Weather Lab Experience are scheduled to perform at the following times:
10 a.m. Blank Park Zoo
Discover the wonders of the natural world! Connect with a few of the Blank Park Zoo's Ambassador Animals and learn how you can take action for wildlife everywhere!
11 a.m. Grout Museum
“Mad Mixture” presentation where you will witness a combination of science experiments regarding temperature that will blow minds and keep the audience guessing while they learn.
1 p.m. Wartburg College
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.
2 p.m. WOI-TV (The Local 5 Weather Lab Experience)
The Local 5 Weather Lab Experience will bring fun and energy to explain the science of weather through engaging experiments that relate directly to the weather. Get ready for crowd interaction and prizes for volunteer helpers!
With a full-day of activities, performances and all-things science, technology, engineering and mathematics, you won’t want to miss STEM Day at the Fair. See you on Aug. 17!
See you at the State Fair!
Hands-on STEM learning took center stage for families in eastern Iowa at Community STEM Day on July 17 in Cedar Rapids.
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The third annual event, hosted by the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council’s Southeast Iowa STEM Region and Collins Aerospace, offered opportunities for families to explore and engage with STEM activities through a variety of hands-on exhibit booths, in-depth workshops and exclusive lab tours.
“We're really about creating interest and excitement around STEM, getting kids to see how STEM manifests in different ways in their own community,” said Matt Stier, Southeast Iowa STEM Regional Manager.
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Farmers-market style booths were by over 70 community partner businesses and organizations where attendees were able to engage with interactive STEM career-linked learning and activities.
“I've loved going around to all the stations, because everywhere you go there's something new to learn,“ said Lexi Williams, a student who attended the event with her sister and mother.
Attendees could even try a semi-truck driving simulation and see the St. Luke’s lifeguard air ambulance (medivac helicopter) which landed on site at the start of the event, up close.
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“We're really grateful for the strong response we have from our community partners because without them this doesn't happen,” Stier said. “It's kind of that classic win-win of the entire village coming together and helping support the next generation of STEM workers, educators and researchers.”
Collins Aerospace was a driving force behind starting the event three years ago and continues to invest time and personnel to facilitate the event each year in addition to financial support. Over 170 volunteers from Collins Aerospace guided students through workshops, hosted tours and helped the event run smoothly.
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In May, the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council at the Iowa Department of Education announced pilot funding for an extension of their signature STEM BEST Program called STEM BEST Explore. This opportunity is intended to allow existing STEM BEST Program model partner schools to extend work-based and career-connected learning opportunities for students into the summer.
One STEM BEST Explore awardee, Harlan Community School District, designed a series of career exploration summer day camp experiences for their elementary school students. In partnership with local businesses, the experience allows students to explore careers around Shelby County. The group visited the Harlan movie theater to learn more about business, toured the local hospital and learned about drones through demonstrations from Harlan alumni who use agricultural drones and local emergency responders.
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“He showed that they do training and they can get into every room at our elementary school in two minutes or less to look for a bad guy, so the kids were intrigued by that,” said Kyleigh Kumm, high school Computer Science and STEM teacher at Harlan. Kumm and fellow Harlan teacher Sarah Fink organized and chaperoned Harlan’s Kids Summer WBL Camp. “And then the ag drones actually sprayed water over our practice fields so the kids were engaged with helping fill them up and figuring out a route plan and loading them in the truck, so they were very hands on with it.” |
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As a capstone of the entire summer experience, fourteen students along with Kumm and Fink visited Omaha's Kiewit Luminarium on July 24.
The day started with a hands-on experience creating wind turbine models in the Luminarium’s maker space which helped spark curiosity and creativity in the students’ minds.
“Getting the right blades was hard," said Beau, a fifth grader at Harlan Community Intermediate School. “First I did an inch size and it didn’t work very well and then I did six inches because I saw a lot of others had even bigger blades and it worked. So I realized the bigger it is the faster it goes.”
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Following this activity, students had the opportunity to explore the interactive exhibits around the Luminarium.
Kumm recalled multiple times throughout the day when kids came up to her exclaiming they'd found an exhibit that expanded on something they had learned during an early camp session and she hopes to continue to expand these lessons and experiences throughout all grade levels.
“They’re starting to put that application together which is great to see,” said Kumm.
 STEM teacher externs, workplace host partners, program mentors and other stakeholders gathered for the annual STEM Teacher Externship Program Forum on July 23.
View highlights from this year’s STEM Teacher Externship Forum in our Flickr event photo gallery.
This summer, 86 externs were placed with 77 unique workplace hosts for six-week long experiences that connect teachers to professionals in local workplaces, providing opportunities to gain valuable STEM-related work experiences that can be applied in the classroom.
STEM Teacher Externships Program Coordinator Ann Gritzner kicked off this summer’s Forum, welcoming teachers from across the state. Iowa STEM Executive Director Justin Lewis and DMACC President and long-serving STEM Council member Robert Denson also provided remarks to the crowd.
“The Forum truly is a celebration of all the learning and collaboration that happens over the course of the summer for our teacher externs as well as the hosts and partners,” Gritzner said. “It is a great way for teachers to begin the transition back to their classrooms and brainstorm even more ways to bring real-world career applications to Iowa students.”
Attendees spent the morning rotating through breakout sessions that featured short presentations from both externs and hosts. Lieutenant Governor and STEM Council Co-Chair Chris Cournoyer was featured as the Forum’s keynote lunch speaker. She spoke about the value of STEM education and thanked teachers for dedicating some of their summer break to expanding their knowledge through an externship. |
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In the afternoon, attendees participated in “mash-up” conversations designed to facilitate discussion between similar externship experiences and similar teaching content areas. Jason Holt, a teacher extern who teaches various industrial technology courses at Emmetsburg High School and Middle School, shared a story he plans to share with students about a real-life application of Pythagreon’s theorem.
“The second week I was on the job with an electrical crew, the guy I was helping ran off a handful of numbers so fast that by the time he got to the third one, I couldn’t remember the first two,” Holt said. “He has done it long enough that he knows exactly what number he needs for that hypotenuse when he does those two bends to make that conduit end up in the right place.”
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The Iowa STEM Teacher Externship Program is already preparing for next year’s externship experiences. To learn more about how to participate next summer, either as a teacher or a workplace host, visit the Externships Program webpage.
Iowa Governor's STEM Advisory Council
Iowa Department of Education
214 East Bartlett Hall
University of Northern Iowa
Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0298
515-335-1531
info@IowaSTEM.org
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