The Dow Chemical Company (Dow) and the American Association of Chemistry Teachers (AACT) are partnering to invigorate chemistry education and support STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education in the nation's schools.
Dow and AACT will work together to convene a series of teacher summits and create more than 750 lesson plans, multimedia resources, demonstrations and other high-quality chemistry teaching materials for use in K–12 classrooms. The work will be supported by a $1 million contribution from Dow to the AACT spread over a four year period.
AACT was launched in 2014 by the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The partnership with Dow promotes the main goal of AACT—to provide its members with resources that foster top-notch chemistry instruction grounded in everyday life.
Dow's STEM mission is to build the workforce of tomorrow by supporting teachers, motivating student achievement, developing careers, and collaborating with communities to transform STEM education into a driver for innovation, manufacturing, and economic prosperity. Through its STEMtheGAP™ initiatives, including the AACT partnership, Dow strives to provide more resources to teachers, drive excitement in young people around STEM topics and increase the number of students who choose STEM majors, ultimately preparing these students to be successful in STEM careers.
In order to prepare these teachers for the challenges they face in the chemistry classroom, Dow and AACT will host a series of teacher summits in cities around the country, with the first summit occurring this summer in Midland, Michigan. Approximately 30 chemistry teachers from surrounding communities will attend the weeklong summit. They will work with Dow volunteers, known as Dow STEM Ambassadors, to identify improvement opportunities in K–12 classroom resources and develop lesson plans, multimedia presentations and other materials that better meet teachers' needs. As part of this effort, Dow STEM Ambassadors will help teachers incorporate career-based examples into their teaching resources, educating students on future potential career opportunities.
Lesson plans and other classroom materials developed at the Dow-AACT teacher summits will be available to AACT members via the association's website, www.teachchemistry.org.
