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WASHINGTON – The Dow Chemical Company (Dow) and the American Association of Chemistry Teachers (AACT) are partnering to invigorate chemistry education and support STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education in the nation’s schools.

Dow and AACT will work together to convene a series of teacher summits and create more than 750 lesson plans, multimedia resources, demonstrations and other high-quality chemistry teaching materials for use in K–12 classrooms. The work will be supported by a $1 million contribution from Dow to AACT spread over a four year period.

AACT was launched in 2014 by the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society. The partnership with Dow promotes the main goal of AACT—to provide its members with resources that foster top-notch chemistry instruction grounded in everyday life.

“We are thrilled to be working together with Dow to support teachers of chemistry across the country and develop the workforce of the tomorrow,” said Madeleine Jacobs, ACS executive director and chief executive officer. “We hope that this partnership can serve as a model that will catalyze greater engagement between chemical industries and local communities.”

“A skilled STEM workforce fuels innovation and economic prosperity and creates solutions that improve the quality of life for people across the globe. At Dow, we value teachers’ critical role, both in inspiring chemistry excitement and in helping students to gain the key skills they need to be successful in STEM careers,” said Andrew N. Liveris, Dow’s chairman and chief executive officer. “As the founding partner of this program, we are proud to collaborate with ACS on this first of its kind community to empower chemistry teachers inside and outside of the classroom as they work to inspire the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs.”

Dow’s STEM mission is to build the workforce of tomorrow by supporting teachers, motivating student achievement, developing careers, and collaborating with communities to transform STEM education into a driver for innovation, manufacturing, and economic prosperity. Through its STEMtheGAP™ initiatives, including the AACT partnership, Dow strives to provide more resources to teachers, drive excitement in young people around STEM topics and increase the number of students who choose STEM majors, ultimately preparing these students to be successful in STEM careers.

“This new partnership comes at a critical time,” said Adam Boyd, AACT program director. “Enrollment in high school chemistry classes is on the rise. Yet, only 35 percent of high school chemistry teachers have both a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and are actually certified to teach it.”

In order to prepare these teachers for the challenges they face in the chemistry classroom, Dow and AACT will host a series of teacher summits in cities around the country, with the first summit occurring this summer in Midland, Michigan. Approximately 30 chemistry teachers from surrounding communities will attend the weeklong summit. They will work with Dow volunteers, known as Dow STEM Ambassadors, to identify improvement opportunities in K–12 classroom resources and develop lesson plans, multimedia presentations and other materials that better meet teachers’ needs. As part of this effort, Dow STEM Ambassadors will help teachers incorporate career-based examples into their teaching resources, educating students on future potential career opportunities.

Lesson plans and other classroom materials developed at the Dow-AACT teacher summits will be available to AACT members via the association’s website, www.teachchemistry.org.

About AACT

AACT is the first national organization of its kind in the United States. Membership in the new organization is open to all who are interested in chemistry education. AACT has three goals: to serve as a trusted source of curricular and pedagogical resources for K–12 chemistry instruction, to provide opportunities for chemistry teachers to network with each other and the broader ACS community, and to disseminate effective teaching and learning practices at the K–12 level. For more information, visit www.teachchemistry.org.

About ACS

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 161,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio. For more information, visit www.acs.org

About Dow
Dow (NYSE: DOW) combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company is driving innovations that extract value from the intersection of chemical, physical and biological sciences to help address many of the world’s most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, clean energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow’s integrated, market-driven, industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in approximately 180 countries and in high growth sectors such as packaging, electronics, water, coatings and agriculture. In 2013, Dow had annual sales of more than $57 billion and employed approximately 53,000 people worldwide. The Company’s more than 6,000 products are manufactured at 201 sites in 36 countries across the globe. References to “Dow” or the “Company” mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted. More information about Dow can be found at www.dow.com. More information about Dow’s commitment to promoting STEM education can be found at www.dow.com/company/citizenship/stem.htm.

Average: 5 out of 5 Rated

One Response to “Dow Partners with the American Chemical Society to Improve Chemistry Teaching Throughout North America”

  1. SERENITY RETREAT CENTER SERENITY RETREAT CENTER Says:

    In my opinion, NYSE:Dow’s STEM Mission is carrying out their mission in great force throughout the US and is definitely creating a positive impact in the educational arena at quite an opportune time. They are targeting the right people to be a part of these initiatives. This type of synergy is quite necessary to build the workforce of tomorrow by supporting teachers, motivating student achievement, developing careers, and collaborating with communities to transform STEM education into a driver for innovation, manufacturing, and economic prosperity. Being involved in tertiary education, I would like to see or hear of the DOW and other industries becoming partners with other countries. I believe in the concept, “No Man is an Island…for real!” I know in many of the industries some companies are in partnership with other schools world wide and that is extremely positive because it will make the world a better place to co-exist. Many of the US students have been involved in exchange programs and they have proven to be quite effective and necessary. When you attend graduations in the US, you see people from around the world and this makes you realize the importance of synergyzing with the world at large.

    As an educator, it has been proven over and over that these type of initiatives, including the AACT partnership, have provided more resources to teachers, drive excitement in young people around STEM topics and increase the number of students who choose STEM majors, ultimately preparing these students to be successful in STEM careers. These are some of the initiatives our educational system need to promote and continue well-sustained communities that will be prepared to deal with recession, depression, oppression etc. We want to see all students that are qualified benefiting from these initiatives. We do not want these initiatives to be integrated into the suburbs and leave the inner-schools left completely out. Another concern I have is how do we integrate children that are home-schooled. How does the US Department of Education incorporate or educate parents and students that are home-schooled?

    This is the best news of all, The Dow Chemical Company (Dow) and the American Association of Chemistry Teachers (AACT) are partnering to invigorate chemistry education and support STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).” As an educational consultant, we found out that the above-mentioned areas US students were not as competitive as other countries such as the Asian countries.

    I like the fact that “A skilled STEM workforce fuels innovation and economic prosperity and creates solutions that improve the quality of life for people across the globe. This tells me that every endeavor is structured to accommodate the needs of both privileged as well as underprivileged students in society. This shows that at Dow, they value teachers’ critical role, both in inspiring chemistry excitement and in helping students to gain the key skills they need to be successful in STEM careers.”

    It is a breath of fresh air to find that this is the first of its kind community initiative that will be implemented to empower chemistry teachers inside and outside of the classroom as they work to inspire the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs. This tells me that the rest of the US heard the cry of these chemistry teachers. Once I asked a chemistry teacher, “Why did you choose this area of concentration with all the pitfalls?” Simple answer: The US has to prepare their students to compete with the rest of the world and also be able to sustain this society well-trained professional workers. Also, we want a society that is creating well-trained workers who are prepared to assist the wide-world community in times of war and/or crisis.

    These types of initiatives are out there but it seems that parents and students from the inner-schools are not getting the information. In this area, educational consultants have been trying to reach the people but I am not quite sure how effective this campaign has been. We Schools’ Boards in the various communities but again many parents and students do not come out to meetings. I believe more of these type of information should be disseminated during the summer time during block street fairs.

    Voted 5 out of 5

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