High school students learn about career opportunities at a STEM event sponsored by Team PA and Foundation investor PECO.

The Pennsylvania STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Initiative is an education partnership between Team Pennsylvania Foundation and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Its mission is to dramatically increase the number of students (especially females, minorities and the underrepresented) entering STEM-related careers while retraining, recruiting and re-training the incumbent workforce in these critical fields.

Team PA provided funding to assist in program development for the five STEM regions in Pennsylvania.

As part of our investment in this project, Team PA Foundation presented $250,000 in grants to the five STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) regions in Pennsylvania.

The grants were earmarked to help program administrators build the infrastructure for the STEM Initiative across Pennsylvania. The seed money has enabled STEM coordinators to establish programs and initiatives that address the regional needs of students in these vital areas.

This project represents an unprecedented statewide public/private partnership between leaders in business, education and government working to prepare more students for STEM careers while retaining, recruiting and retraining incumbent workers in these critical fields.

The goal is to develop a coalition and regional leadership teams to meet the following four long-term goals by 2018:

• Increase the number and diversity of Pennsylvanians with high quality post-secondary STEM education and training.
• Ensure that all graduates from Pennsylvania’s high schools are proficient in STEM content areas.
• Increase the number and diversity of teachers well-prepared in STEM content areas who are working in Pennsylvania’s p-20 educational institutions.
• Increase public support for STEM education as a priority for the commonwealth’s citizens.

Encouraging females to consider a career in the STEM disciplines is one of the program's goals.

With contributions from a variety of supporters, the Foundation’s investment has leveraged both private and public sector support for a cross-agency and cross-sector partnership targeted at ensuring the commonwealth’s students gain the necessary edge to compete and succeed in a global economy.

This has been made possible with the generous support of the departments of Education, Labor & Industry and Community and Economic Development, Wall Street West and the National Girls Collaborative Project.