CEDAR FALLS –The Iowa Governor’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Advisory Council matched more than 60 teachers from schools across Iowa with local STEM workplaces for the ninth year of the Iowa STEM Teacher Externships program.

The six-week immersions began in June from one corner of Iowa to another and in a variety of STEM fields. While teachers build new ways to tie state academic standards into the available jobs and skills needed by local workplaces, businesses find the help they need to complete significant projects that bring value to the organization.

This year, Terry Meyers, a life and physical science teacher at St. Thomas Aquinas School in Webster City, is working at the Iowa Department of Natural Resources in Lehigh this summer to bring real-life applications, experiences and opportunities back into his classroom in the fall.

“I am working with Brushy Creek State Park’s Prairie Center,” Meyers said. “The center germinates, grows, and harvests seed from native prairie plants for prairie reserves all over Iowa. They have several plots filled with dozens of plants that have to be monitored for water levels, nutrients, and of course proper harvest conditions.

Meyers said Much of June was spent planting and watering with the harvesting of some early bloomers.

“July and August are going to be more intensively focused on the harvesting of the native species and drying/storing the seed,” he said.

Teachers are matched with workplaces near their school districts based on that organization’s needs, the teacher’s skills and the subject they teach. By keeping the matches local, school-business partnerships develop that last throughout the coming school year and beyond, ultimately making students more aware of the skills needed to fill the jobs in the city or community they live in.

“The students are the main beneficiaries of the program,” said Meghan Reynolds, program coordinator. “Teachers bring relevance to their classrooms through lessons built off of their Teacher Externship experience, as well as the ability to expose students to STEM careers that they may not have known existed.”

Currently, when not watering, harvesting, planting, or monitoring, Meyers said he’s establishing a collection of seed germination information to send out to all who use the seed so no plots will be lost due to improper information.

“I will turn this into a project for my students where they get to research a list of plants, using my spreadsheet, in order to plan out gardening plots and locations to accommodate the growth needs of each species like the Prairie Center has had to do for the health of their plant species,” he said.

Since 2009, the program has been partly funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Iowa Economic Development Authority, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources REAP-CEP, along with cost-share investments by Iowa business and industry partners.