(5b) Industry's Unique Role In Increasing Rural Students In the STEM Pipeline

Thirty percent of America's K-12 students attend rural schools according to the National Research Center on Rural Education Support. Rural students represent diverse ethnic backgrounds and income levels. They also have been shown to perform as well as their urban or suburban counterparts in science and math. Students in rural school systems are lacking exposure to engineering as a career option. Many science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) outreach efforts are focused on urban populations or are led by universities, generally leading to focusing on students living near colleges or universities offering degrees in STEM fields. Outreach by universities to rural areas not in their immediate vicinity is difficult because of the low concentrations of students and the typically remote locations. In general, the geographic distribution of industrial and manufacturing sites across states with a significant fraction of rural areas is more even than the distribution of universities that offer degrees in engineering. This positions industry to have a strong role in outreach to rural areas. Oklahoma and Illinois will be considered as case studies for the relative locations of rural high schools, manufacturing sites, and baccalaureate engineering programs within the states. 

Industrial sites near rural areas are already important to the neighboring rural communities for providing jobs to many of their residents, mostly for the non-science-related manufacturing positions. Rural students recognize the names of the industrial facilities and generally have some appreciation for the work that goes on there either through a friend or family member working there or the products and services that they provide. By partnering with the local school districts, industry has a unique opportunity to utilize local resources to increase scientific and technical literacy among their non-engineering employees, their communities, and their neighboring rural school districts. This could have a number of benefits: improving social perception of the company, increasing the potential technical workforce that may desire to live in remote areas after graduation where the manufacturing sites are located, and enhancing the dissemination of STEM outreach programs to rural populations.