Try to imagine a world without STEM innovation - you can't do it.

STEM makes our day-to-day lives a reality. We are able to get to our jobs and school, eat delicious food, monitor our health, and communicate with friends and family across the world thanks to innovative technology. The next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs will need to apply their solid understanding of STEM disciplines to take on the toughest challenges and make the world a better place.

That's why the BR STEM Network is working to cultivate and support local stakeholders across education, science and business sectors to make sure that students can move through a range of learning opportunities to master the knowledge and skills they need to thrive.  The community-wide App Development “pop-up” workshop, sponsored by the Foundation for EBR Schools last week is one such example.  

Driven by local young people's desire to acquire app-development skills in order to compete in the U.S. Congressional App Challenge, volunteers from LSU, EBRPSS, AmeriCorps VISTA, and Sparkhound, as well as Congressman Graves were quickly assembled to offer the Saturday workshop at Tara High - reimagining how community partners, in and outside of school, can coordinate efforts and align resources to provide quality STEM education for more students.

To meet the demands of the future, we need to ensure that we are tapping the potential of ALL of our community's young people. According to local workforce experts, we aren't preparing enough STEM-capable students to keep up with demand - so we can't afford to leave anyone out when it comes to developing problem-solving and technical skills for the 21st century STEM-focused workplace.