STEM Leaders Across The Country Meet In Tulsa

Teachers always want to get their students more excited about science, math and technology; and that's the goal of a national conference that started in Tulsa Tuesday night.

Educators from nine different cities are in town to talk about STEM education and they said Tulsa is a great example of what works.

After seeing all the bells and whistles inside Fab Lab, these educators said they're excited to learn from Tulsa's progress.

The Hardesty Center for Fab Lab Tulsa is chock full of the latest tech toys and gadgets. It's just one example of what Tulsa has to offer when it comes to science, technology, engineering and math education.

Xan Black is the regional STEM alliance director and helped organize this week's conference.

"We're so thrilled to have Philadelphia and San Francisco and Los Angeles and all these cities to come here and study STEM education, is great for our city," Black said.

And there's quite a bit the education coordinators can learn from Tulsa, she said.

The city has completed 36,000 hours of STEM programming since it was chosen for the US2020 program - a federal STEM initiative - two years ago.

Black said, "We've made so much progress in such a short amount of time, and to the person, they've all just been amazed Tulsa. I have to say, we've gotten really good marks."

This week, STEM education leaders will bounce ideas and strategies off each other - discussing how to prepare today's generation of children to become tomorrow's innovators.

So far, they agree, Tulsa is a good venue.

Philadelphia STEM leader, Phil Brooks, said, "I've never been to Tulsa I've only been on the East Coast. It's really good to see other folks are doing really strong STEM work."

"It's really neat to see them make something physical that you can bring kids to and bring adults to and try it out. It's very visible here, which is awesome," said Pennsylvania STEM leader, Kate Popejoy.

The conference wraps up Thursday.

Tulsa is one of only nine cities chosen to participate.