Irit Sasson, Keren Kopietz, and Jeanne Century. Eastern Galilee Regional Cluster: A Regional Innovative STEM Program. 

In the past few years, 15 municipalities and regional councils from the Eastern Galilee have joined together as a local government cluster, in order to advance processes and initiatives outside of their local frameworks and gain the benefits of operating on a regional level. One of the main educational goals is to foster STEM educated population (STEM refers to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). A high-quality STEM-oriented education is essential for gaining the intellectual tools to integrate successfully into society and workforce. Increased opportunities in STEM education among schoolchildren will lead more of them to attain an academic science degree. The initiative’s goal is to increase substantially the number of high school graduates from the eastern Galilee with the type and level of educational achievements in STEM that will enable them to pursue a science degree on the way to employment in the scientific or technological industries. The formation of an exceptional coalition of stakeholders from the region, from all sectors associated with achieving the goal is crucial. Principal stakeholders include: municipalities and regional councils; educational leaders; the colleges in the region which teach science and technology subjects; Research institutes; a number of local industries; the Ministry of Education, school principals and science teachers. The regional science initiative includes special programs for both science teachers and children (kindergarten to 12th grade). This initiative constitutes a special cooperative effort with all partners guided by the same goal and measured according to the same objectives in order to attain a regional impact. This research proposes investigation of the innovative operational procedures for effective intervention.

Irit Sasson
Tel-Hai College, Israel

Keren Kopietz
Tel-Hai College, Israel

Jeanne Century
The University of Chicago, Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education