On October 28, 2014, at noon in the Marcus Nanotechnology Building Conference Room, James Meindl, Professor Emeritus in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, presented the first group of Volunteer STEM Outreach Ambassadors with certificates and STEM outreach kits at the beginning of the Nano@Tech meeting.  Directing kids to the vast opportunities that await in the high tech workforce is the goal of Meindl’s Legacy Program: “Teachable Moments for the Future STEM Workforce”. 

In 2013, Dr. Meindl was awarded an ACE/Sloan Legacy Grant to develop an emeritus faculty project in an area that provides a community value extension to his lifelong research career.  Meindl’s vision was to establish a K-12 STEM outreach project that creates “Teachable Moment” demonstrations to motivate students towards engaging in science and engineering to develop the high technology workforce that will be needed in the future.   In the project, graduate and undergraduate researchers gain training and certification for K-12 STEM outreach under the “Volunteer STEM Outreach Ambassador” arm of the program, plus a $1000 participation award to be used for their individual research. The initial benefit to the participant Georgia Tech students is an immediate increase in research topic visibility, personal presentation confidence, and networking skills that will benefit their future careers.  A secondary benefit to the Georgia Tech students is the ability to use the certification to source future funding for their research. The benefit to K-12 students, parents and teachers, as well as the technology industry and government, is a highly interactive motivational tool that will entice youth to investigate the exciting rewards of joining the high technology workforce. 

In the first eight months of Teachable Moments’ operations, more than 1500 students have been directly served and motivated toward choosing STEM careers by young researchers through engagement at more than thirty events. The program has also gained the support of the general public as events have served a wide variety of national, regional and local school, community and education support organizations.

To learn more about the “Teachable Moments for the Future STEM Workforce” project, visit the website at this link.

Publicity awarded Meindl Legacy Program March-October, 2014:

http://www.news.gatech.edu/features/igniting-stem-spark

http://www.news.gatech.edu/features/georgia-tech-and-k-12-mission

http://www.ien.gatech.edu/news/new-legacy-project-georgia-tech-pairs-k-12-grade-students-graduate-student-researchers-create