What's the answer? Creating a rich culture of STEM education in schools requires professional development, suggests
Cindy Moss, vice president of global STEM initiatives for curriculum developer Discovery Education. She points to
research showing teachers need 80 hours of cumulative targeted professional development before effectively teaching
STEM-promoting classes.
“Many educators in our country believe we need to accelerate our approach to STEM education," Moss says. "There
are three to four million STEM job openings in the U.S. right now, and companies can't nd American workers with the
skills they need. Fifty percent of everybody's jobs right now are STEM, and they're predicting that in the next 10 years
about 75 percent of all jobs will involve STEM."