The Arizona SciTech Festival has grown into one of the state’s largest collaborative around STEM. To this end we have over 500 collaborating organizations around business, education, government and community collaborating to put forth STEM based celebrations in their communities. There are now over 1000 events in more than 51 Arizona cities and towns. What has made the effort so unique is the festival’s ability to serve as common ground for communities to come together around STEM and innovation. As a result, it now serves many regions through community, education and economic development efforts. To this end, we are now anchored at the Arizona Commerce Authority with Arizona Board of Regions, ASU, UA, Arizona Science Center and the Arizona Technology Council Foundation as Foundational Partners.
Chief Science Officer Program
A Chief Science Officer or “CSO” is a 6th to 12th grade student elected by their peers to represent their school in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) and innovation. The 2015-16 year marks the inaugural year with 70 schools throughout Arizona having elected 120 CSOs. A core component of the CSO concept is to increase student “voice” in the local, state and national conversation about STEM. All too often discussions about education and the workforce take place without potentially the most important stakeholder…students! What adults view about the future workforce may not be aligned with what students want. To address this, CSOs will be selected through a general election and in hopes to capture the voice of their student population. As the number of CSOs build, so will their collective voice. To this end, students will be organized into a statewide cabinets to work with one another and address larger, high impact opportunities as a collective group. Beginning with a cabinet of 120 CSOs, the collective voice of the cabinet will only grow as the number of CSOs continues to double annually.
To learn more, visit the Arizona SciTech Festival website.