AKRON, Ohio – The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. wants to inspire more Akron-area companies to create boots-on-the-ground partnerships with Akron Public Schools.
With a recent $50,000 grant, Goodyear professionals are working with teachers in the classrooms to develop new projects at Akron’s National Inventors’ Hall of Fame STEM middle and high schools.
The grant is earmarked for initiatives such as the fifth-grade LEGO Project: Letting Everyone GO Coding; an after-school coding club; and support for two teachers and two Goodyear employees to develop Advanced Placement courses.
“Our focus on STEM education and the way that the kids are taught aligns with one of core areas of focus, which is community engagement,” said Alison White, Goodyear’s director of community engagement. “By doing this we hope we can inspire other companies to get involved. A check is just a check but when you empower your employees, they really bring the programs to life.”
The engagements can last from a few days to several months.
Goodyear retiree Robert Benedict teaches antenna design to Akron STEM students as part of a lecture series on amateur radio operations.Susan Hall
The LEGO robotics and Vex robotics programs, in which kids build robots to compete locally and nationally, has been supported and sustained by Goodyear for about eight years, said Joe Lettieri, Goodyear’s new concepts manager in global innovations.
“As a company, we really like the idea of focusing our support on the schools and we wish we could work with all of them,” Lettieri said. “But we see greater results from building close relationships.”
As Goodyear’s liaison to the STEM schools, Lettieri works closely with Sam Crews of the Ohio STEM Learning Network and manager of the Akron hub. The men are currently working on a new advanced engineering course.
“We don’t want to create the content without having the knowledge base of what that should look like from actual engineers,” Crews said. “Grants are structured to empower the Goodyear folks, and our staff members then have the opportunity to apply for money inside that grant to make classroom visions come true.”
For special projects, such as an ongoing amateur radio initiative, Lettieri conducted an internal search at Goodyear to find licensed ham operators to work with the school. Goodyear also calls on retirees with various kinds of expertise who wish to volunteer.
Goodyear has supported Akron schools for nearly 40 years, with STEM initiatives the focus for the past several years. For for the past 17 years Goodyear has hosted STEM Career Days, which each year enable more than 2,000 high school and middle school kids to interact with Goodyear employees.
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