Maritime Aquarium joining national coalition to improve STEM training

norwalk maritime aquarium STEM — Educators work together on a shark dissection during a past professional-development workshop at The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk. Photo courtesy The Maritime Aquarium

The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk is joining the nation”™s top academic institutions, nonprofits, foundations and government agencies as Connecticut”™s only representative in a partnership to provide STEM training and support to teachers.

The aquarium is joining 40 others in the ranks of 100Kin10, a national organization dedicated to solving the STEM teacher shortage by 2021. The Maritime Aquarium is the only U.S. aquarium among its now-321 members; the only zoo in the partnership is the San Diego Zoo.

Other member partners include the American Museum of Natural History, the Bank Street College of Education, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Dell, Google, Intel, JP Morgan Chase & Co., the National Academy of Sciences, NASA, NOAA, Sesame Workshop, the Smithsonian Science Education Center and more than 50 universities.

“The invitation to join 100Kin10 is a powerful validation of our current work in STEM education and a strong motivation to do even more in the future,” Maritime Aquarium Director of Education Tom Naiman said.

“From the STEM training we are providing to early-childhood educators through the expertise developed at the Maritime Odyssey Preschool up to the NGSS workshops for midde- and high-school teachers, we are really making a difference,” he said. “It”™s exciting to see that impact recognized on a national scale.”