FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
STEPHENVILLE, Texas—Tarleton State University’s Center for Academic Outreach & Engagement has received a $50,000 grant from the Texas Pioneer Foundation to help design and install activity stations for its STEM Mobile Learning Center.
Once completely outfitted, the mobile learning center will bring STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education to Texas public schools within a 90-mile radius of Stephenville.
“Thanks to the generous support of the Texas Pioneer Foundation we are one step closer to completing our STEM mobile unit,” said Dr. Denae Dorris, director of Tarleton’s Center for Academic Outreach & Engagement. “The unit will be a sophisticated and fully equipped science and engineering laboratory that emphasizes the integration of mathematics. It will connect remote, rural schools to new learning opportunities.”
The mobile unit’s interior and exterior activity stations will provide seven unique hands-on learning experiences, allowing students to explore real-world STEM challenges and careers.
In addition to bringing hands-on STEM education to remote schools, Tarleton’s new STEM Mobile Learning Center will help recruit and train pre-service educators—university students pursuing teacher certification—into STEM fields, Dorris explained.
“The Mobile Learning Center is a direct response to the growing need for STEM-educated graduates,” Dorris said. “By cultivating passion, and improving attitudes toward STEM disciplines, Tarleton hopes to increase the number of high school graduates interested in pursuing careers in STEM fields while engaging our university students in real-world STEM experiences.”
To support the STEM Mobile Learning Center and learn more about Tarleton’s Center for Academic Outreach & Engagement, visit www.tarleton.edu/aoe.
Tarleton, a member of The Texas A&M University System, provides a student-focused, value-driven educational experience marked by academic innovation and exemplary service, and dedicated to transforming students into tomorrow’s professional leaders. With campuses in Stephenville, Fort Worth, Waco, Midlothian and online, Tarleton engages with its communities to provide real-world learning experiences and to address societal needs while maintaining its core values of integrity, leadership, tradition, civility, excellence and service.
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Contact: Dr. Denae Dorris, Center for Academic Outreach & Engagement
254-968-1990
dorris@tarleton.edu
