How the Rocket City benefits from a STEM boost

Huntsville, Alabama – nicknamed the Rocket City for its association with U.S. missile development – is the nation’s top city for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) employment. Nearly 17% of all local jobs relate to STEM, and the city’s year-over-year tech jobs growth rate of 309% ranks it number one nationally. Nevertheless, the city isn’t immune to the chronic need for STEM workforce development.

One solution, embraced by Lockheed Martin in Huntsville, is the partnership developed with MindSpark, a not-for-profit that creates and implements programs to accelerate growth, foster collaboration, and drive innovative solutions by connecting schools, businesses, and communities. MindSpark’s primary mission is upskilling educators, helping teachers understand problem-based learning as a teaching model. They’ve worked with nearly 7,000 industry partners, large and small, to bring authentic problems to students in public, charter, and private schools across the country.

The problem-based model, one of the oldest forms of teaching, is essential to high-quality STEM education for MindSpark.

“It’s not just a simulation. It’s changing the way kids think about themselves and how they think about what’s possible,” says MindSpark CEO Kellie Lauth. “We work with educators and school district leaders to understand what their standards and policies are, or what their expectations are for teaching and learning, and then provide professional development for them.”

“We’ve had a long-standing partnership with Lockheed Martin, and they care a great deal about increasing opportunities for all students in STEM education,” Lauth says, “At their hub in Huntsville, Alabama, they asked if we could build a strong STEM identity, helping schools take on problem-based learning.”

How does Lockheed Martin benefit?

“Lockheed Martin believes a strong STEM identity is a strong occupational identity, and it helps students acquire a livable-wage job. They spend a lot of time being career mentors and models within our programs. That’s powerful for students who may never have thought about going into aerospace or engineering,” Lauth adds. “Their presence helps us teach 21st Century skills, what we call durable skills: critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, having emotional intelligence. We leverage industry partners to give kids examples of why that matters in the workplace and how to develop those skills early on.”

MindSpark publishes an impact report and case study for every partnership to measure how they’re influencing graduation rates and the way employers see students as viable employees.

“I can’t tell you how many students have said to us, ‘Having that industry person show up for me and care about my idea is why I stayed at school,’ or ‘This piece of this project has completely changed the trajectory of my life and made me pursue opportunities I would never have pursued on my own,’” Lauth explains. “That’s not always easy to measure, but I tell my industry partners all the time, you can’t underestimate the influence you can have.” –Eric