Talking STEM with the Mayor

Mayor Jonathan Rothschild talking with Tucson’s future innovators at 2015 SARSEF Future Innovators Night

This afternoon, I had the privilege of joining DaNel Hogan, director of The STEMAZing Project, for her meeting with Tucson’s Mayor Jonathan Rothschild.

DaNel presented him with a quick outline of this summer’s STEMAZing Institute, three days of superlative professional development for Southern Arizona’s K–12 teachers. Teachers will choose from seven strands: Dark Skies: From Light Pollution to Light Solutions; Energy in Water, Water in Energy; Get to Know Your Sonoran Desert Ecosystem; Make It Take! Mathematics; Our Place in the Universe: Third Rock from the Sun; Schoolyard BioBlitz; and The Physics and Art of Sound and Music.

Mayor Rothschild was impressed with DaNel’s guiding philosophy for teacher professional development: always send the teachers home with the materials they have just been trained to use. It is less than useless to present teachers with new ways to present information to their students without providing the necessary tools.

I was impressed with the suggestions that the mayor offered DaNel on finding donors interested in supporting the STEMAZing Institute. He listened carefully to her presentation, then had immediate ideas for finding money. He must have been formidable as an attorney. Tucson is lucky to have him as mayor.