An estimated 1,000 biotech-related jobs are expected to be available in San Antonio over the next five years. To meet this need, TRTF forged a partnership with Communities in Schools of San Antonio (CIS-SA) to prepare the next generation of employees in bioscience and technology.

Step Into STEM is a career awareness program that inspires middle school students to choose STEM education to prepare for future STEM careers. Successful STEM education is an empowering interdisciplinary approach that brings STEM concepts to life through challenging opportunities that mimic the complexities of the real world.

TRTF’s 2021 program provided two middle schools in San Antonio’s near eastside with an opportunity to participate in stimulating activities to enhance career awareness, including in-class science lessons, full-day science workshops, and STEM family nights. The 2021 program reached over 1,000 students.

TRTF continued its partnership with CIS-SA in 2022 and scaled the program to six times the number of students for a total projected impact of over 6,000 students receiving career awareness opportunities across the San Antonio area.

2022 Career Awareness Program

• STEM Career Toolkits: classroom activities designed to integrate STEM lessons with career awareness, including USB microscope activity, hydraulic robotic claw activity, STEM Career BINGO game, classroom posters, and stickers with QR code linking to Instagram account highlighting local STEM careers through weekly posting of videos and photos.
• STEM Workshops: hands-on STEM learning activities and on-site career mentoring opportunities, including a bioengineering activity to design a robotic hand, a biosciences lab experiment to extract DNA, a tour of the innovation center, and a leadership luncheon speaker.
• STEM Family Nights: event for the entire school to experience hands-on activities and provide parents an opportunity to work with their children to launch rockets, program robots, explore with microscopes, and more.

Step Into STEM seeks to build this region’s skilled workforce by inspiring middle school students from economically disadvantaged schools to engage in STEM education and prepare for the abundant, high-paying STEM careers filtering into San Antonio.

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