Positive Influence Of Education Partnerships For Teaching Integrated STEM Through Drone Competition

While enhancing the STEM career pipeline through improved quality and quantity of STEM teaching available to an ever-widening diversity is K-12 students is garnering significant attention across the U.S., there lacks widely adopted implementation and support models that efficiently make full advantage of the vast human and fiscal resources available. A wide swath of STEM education stake-holding partners—schools, businesses, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and institutions of higher education—frequently are compelled to provide support and guidance but lack easy to follow pathways in order to do so. This research study describes and documents a unique vehicle to bring often disparate partners to a unified effort under the banner of drone education designed to improve STEM and technology-oriented career pathways. Identified barriers that the collaborative partnership helped overcome to ensure success include providing: modest start-up costs for modern high-tech equipment for participating schools (drones); an infrastructure for leveraging the consistently successful approach to providing regional and statewide competitive events (precision drone flight and knowledge competitions); large-scale buildings and facilities to host competitive festivals and events (e.g., indoor sports stadiums); and K-12 teacher professional development programs along with classroom-ready instructional materials needed to nurture and sustain student drone education programs.