John Doornenbal is an Industrial Technology teacher from Sioux Center High School, who is wor king at Interstates, a  company that designs and implements industrial electrical and automation applications for  feed mills, food processing plants, ethanol plants, and the like.  Interstates is a great company that has partnered with John in his classrooms in many  different situations.

 

John is specifically working at Interfab, a division of

Interstates that cuts, builds, and assembles electrical parts, conduit runs, underground, light assemblies, and the like that can be  shipped to the site. By building and pre-assembling them, many hours are saved at the job site.  John has been learning about tasks that each employee is involved in and the skills needed to complete the task, both

technical (welding, measuring, reading a plan, assembly, conduit bending, threading...) and soft skills (teamwork, communication, critical thinking, adaptability,  attitude, self-motivation...). One of John's primary tasks will be to help to develop a hands-on skills assessment used to evaluate potential employees,  and to help with the process of how to train and upload new employees in a practical way.

Interstates in Sioux Center also hosted Robbie Cundy during his 6-week externship.  During his experience, Robbie joined the Analytics team where he participated in analyzing big data for the clients of Interstates.  With the growth of technology in many areas of life, our world is creating data at an astonishing rate.  Because of this, our students need more experience working with data to guide decisions they make as consumers.  As a math teacher, Robbie plans to incorporate team-based projects in statistics class that seek to accomplish this goal. 

hopes to be able to continue his relationship with the DNR fisheries department to benefit his
science students. Jon has learned a lot from working with Mike Hawkins (District Fisheries
Biologist) on local environmental issues. By bringing some of the projects he's working on in
the field and lab this summer back to his classroom, he'll be able to enrich the learning of his
students and help to improve some of the natural resources in the area. He feels that his
science and outdoor classes have already made significant contributions to wildlife through
nesting structures and plantings. With these new relationships and projects his students will be
able to positively impact the water quality and biodiversity of our local streams and lakes. Jon is
excited to bring the field and lab work back to his students so they can learn to make a positive
impact on their environment.

Ayn Thoreson, a Spanish and Business teacher at Spencer High School, is working in the Human Resources department at Rosenboom in Spirit Lake this summer.  Rosenboom has seen an influx in the number of employees whose first language is not English.  Ayn is looking at many aspects of Rosenboom's recruiting, onboarding and training processes to help discover needs that can be met to improve communication, job success and retention.

As many organizations are faced with cancelling summer events and programs for kids, the Northwest Iowa STEM Region rose to the challenge by providing virtual educational experiences for kids.  

 

The four-week program began on Thursday, June 4. Each Thursday, the Northwest Iowa STEM Region hosts a Facebook Live event on their page (NW STEM Region) at 11 a.m. They provide examples of projects and experiments that kids can do at home. Participants who complete the challenge at home and share videos or photos on the Facebook page can fill out a registration form to receive a free STEM Challenge Kit containing challenge cards and the materials to complete the task. There is a kit for preschool to 4^th grade and a kit for 5th grade to 8^th grade.

 

"Our videos have generated a great deal of engagement and the response from participants has been extremely positive," said Mary Trent, Regional Manager. "We know it's been challenging for parents and caretakers to keep kids busy and come up with ideas for activities, so our goal was to provide fun challenges that they can do with items you already have at home."

 

The STEM Challenge Kits will be distributed while supplies last, but Trent encourages people to check out the videos for ideas on encouraging kids to get creative this summer. There are two Facebook Live events remaining, June 18 has an "Explore" theme and June 25 will focus on a "Create" theme.

 

Link to Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/NW-Stem-Region-1094902367348470/