Earlier this month, STEM educators, advocates, industry leaders and policymakers took over the Iowa Events Center in downtown Des Moines for a full day of celebration and collaboration of all-things STEM.
The annual Iowa STEM Summit, hosted by the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council at the Iowa Department of Education allowed participants time and space to explore innovative strategies, share best practices and hear from leaders who are advancing STEM education in Iowa. This year’s theme, Accelerating Innovation, was showcased through a packed day of engaging keynote speakers, interactive breakout sessions and networking opportunities, with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and the technologies to support it.
View highlights from this year’s Iowa STEM Summit in our Flickr event photo gallery.
“Summit truly is a celebration of STEM in Iowa,” said Justin Lewis, Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council Bureau Chief at the Department. “The Council takes pride in hosting a day dedicated to learning and collaboration between educators, business partners and leaders, and we are particularly excited about this year’s AI focus in response to Executive Order 14.”
Lewis welcomed around 450 attendees to the event, and council co-chairs Diane Young and Lieutenant Governor Chris Cournoyer provided remarks, sharing their own experiences with STEM. Department PK-12 Division Administrator Tina Wahlert also spoke on the importance of exploring innovative technologies and garnered some laughs from the audience when recalling her students' excitement over the Oregon Trail game on a floppy disk in 1985.
Throughout the day, over 40 breakout sessions allowed attendees to hear from students, educators and professionals on STEM and AI at the state and district levels as well as within business and industry. Council-funded programs were featured through presentations from students, educators and program coordinators.
“I've talked with my friends at school and other students, but having actual adults here to listen to kids or students’ perspectives on AI is really interesting,” said Henry Zou, a senior at Johnston High School and student presenter. “It's really nice to know that the adults, the policymakers and the people who are making the decisions, are also listening to our perspectives as well.”
The summit’s premiere sponsor, Microsoft, hosted the "Microsoft Experience” on the Grand Concourse amidst the breakout sessions. Through this exciting experience, attendees had opportunities to learn about MakeCode and FarmBeats, get resource materials, and participate in engaging activities like CloudCraft, a Minecraft-like educational experience. Microsoft gave away a free FarmBeats STEM kit to all attendees, encouraging those who were not educators to donate them to a local school, library or extension office.
“The goal for us today is really to make sure that individuals are aware of all the resources that are available,” said Sara Hansen, senior community affairs with Microsoft. “The educators in the room will always say to their students, ‘there's no dumb questions.’ There isn't any for this. We want to make sure that they feel comfortable coming to the booth today and asking our experts in AI and resource development what they can do and what they can master in their own classrooms.”
At lunchtime, Hansen and Rich Massie, director of operations for Microsoft, along with Rob Burnett, vice president of science learning for the Science Center of Iowa (SCI), announced the traveling exhibit, “Artificial Intelligence: Your Mind & The Machine,” would be coming to SCI in January. Iowa will be the third state to host this traveling exhibit.
Lunchtime keynote speaker Jay Flores provided an exciting array of experiments under his “It’s not magic, it’s science!” brand.
“I want you to go back to the three or four-year-old version of yourselves,” Flores told the audience at the start of his keynote speech.
Flores shared demonstrations and experiments with the help of audience volunteers. He emphasized the importance of making science and engineering accessible and attainable to all by representing abstract concepts using easy to source materials.
The first 200 to check-in in the morning received a free copy of Flores’ new book, “Engineer Someday.” Flores met with attendees and signed copies following his keynote.
The day concluded with an inspirational keynote by former Director of Space Operations Tomas Gonzalez-Torres. He shared his background and experiences from over 25 years at NASA and applied the lessons learned “from shooting for the stars” with an emphasis on preparing students for their own future careers.
With such a successful summit featuring educators across the state and strong community and national partners, the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council is looking forward to next year’s event. Planning is already underway for the next Iowa STEM Summit, tentatively set for fall 2026.