• By Jeff Wheatcraft, Asaiah Puente, Ed.D., CNP, & Stephanie Garcia, Ph.D. • IDRA Newsletter • April 2025 •
As both the educational and political landscapes change daily, what remains the same is the need for high-quality STEM education pathways to engage teachers and students. We need pipelines that cultivate awareness and intrigue of STEM career-related opportunities.
Through powerful partnerships, IDRA recently led two experiences that engaged teachers and students in STEM-related career fields. As a Defense STEM Education Consortium (DSEC) partner, IDRA is helping prepare a workforce ready for the challenges of the future. We also co-lead the Alamo STEM Ecosystem, which builds “stronger connections with students and to support them as they graduate from one STEM program to another” (Garcia, 2022).
These seamless collaborations, along with affiliate local and national partnerships, facilitated a STEM educator conference and a San Antonio city-wide STEM youth summit to support teachers and students of all backgrounds and improve STEM awareness.
Student-Serving STEM Youth Summit
In partnership with St. Philip’s College, IDRA hosted our annual STEM Youth Summit in March. Coming off a successful DSEC-funded pilot event the previous year, this collaboration of STEM stakeholders bolstered nearly 200 students from over 12 schools to engage and discuss STEM career pathway opportunities.
Student groups from across San Antonio were greeted by an opening session featuring keynote speakers Dr. Adena Williams Lawston, president of St. Philip’s College, and Varsha Shashishekar, an inspiring local entrepreneur and high school senior who founded PiGirls, a non-profit that supports girls who code.
Students then participated in sessions that included leadership talks, STEM career pathways, and hands-on experiences. Many of St. Philip’s College faculty led discussions, like virtual reality, engineering and automotive electric technology. Leadership discourse included talks from UT Health, Find Your Grind, Girls Inc., and IDRA. San Antonio Parks and Recreation partnered with the San Antonio Museum of Science and Technology (SAMSAT), an ASE co-lead with IDRA, to showcase Robonation’s SeaPERCH.
In the afternoon, we held a STEM Expo where students could meet with and discuss STEM career pathways of multiple STEM stakeholders. These included the San Antonio International Airport, the DoSeum, the Wex Foundation, STEMflights, Gardopia Gardens, and various local college STEM programs.
The feedback we received from students highlights the summit’s role in boosting students’ confidence in their ability to pursue STEM fields. Many students shared positive comments about their experience, describing it as engaging and informative. Several students also appreciated the supportive environment and interactive learning sessions.
“I never thought I’d be into coding, but after today’s workshop, I’m seriously considering it!
“It was awesome to see so many students like me interested in science and tech.”
“Now I kind of want to be an engineer… and I didn’t even know what that meant before today.”
“I asked a speaker how they got started, and they told me they were just like me in high school. That stuck with me.”
“Now I kind of want to be an engineer… and I didn’t even know what that meant before today.”
– High school student at IDRA’s STEM Youth Summit
Educator-Serving STEM Educator Conference
Two weeks earlier, IDRA and the Alamo STEM Ecosystem held the annual STEM Educator Conference. This free event for local teachers and pre-service educators provided inspirational talks, hands-on activities and an engaging STEM Expo. The event enabled teachers to learn, network and collaborate with other educators and local STEM partners.
The focus of this year’s conference was “The Joy of STEM,” a hopeful spark in a time of uncertainty. With nearly 200 participants, teachers at this year’s conference had opportunities to dig deep into STEM practices that bring joy to teachers and students. The sessions ranged from understanding microplastics and mathematics in Mariachi music to hands-on investigations in kinesthetic astronomy and a mystery bones scientific investigation.
Sponsors such as the UTSA College of Education and Human Development (with venue and conference chair, Dr. Crystal Kalinec-Craig), Alamo AFCEA Education Foundation, and TXFame, made this a memorable event. In addition, a STEM Expo was led by many local industry partners, connecting with educators on the latest products and research to enhance the classroom experience.
By the end, educators had collected multiple items, be it lesson plans or ideas, to take back and share with students. They also received continuing professional education (CPE) hours from the state. When asked, “What was your major takeaway from the conference?, teachers replied:
How to implement STEM concepts in my classroom in authentic ways.
I learned how to incorporate more creative ideas in the hands-on realm of teaching middle school science, which was why I came!
New resources related to content I teach in my current elementary classes.
What an amazing collection of STEM resources exists. Sometimes, in the hustle-bustle of day-to-day teaching, we don’t have time to explore and find things.
The key takeaway was the investment that people have in STEM.
These two events represent the goals of the IDRA and the Alamo STEM Ecosystem and embody the passion and hard work of all the STEM partners in the San Antonio area. With relationships like these, the future of STEM in San Antonio looks bright.
Jeff Wheatcraft and Asaiah Puente, Ed.D., CNP, are IDRA school-based consultants. Comments and questions may be directed to them via email at jeff.wheatcraft@idra.org and asaiah.puente@idra.org. Stephanie García, Ph.D., is IDRA’s STEM education specialist and directs the IDRA VisionCoders program. Comments and questions may be directed to her via email at stephanie.garcia@idra.org.
[© 2025, IDRA. This article originally appeared in the April edition of the IDRA Newsletter. Permission to reproduce this article is granted provided the article is reprinted in its entirety and proper credit is given to IDRA and the author.]
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