Honeywell enhances STEM program in partnership with U.S. Space & Rocket Center

As a technology company, Honeywell sees a growing need for skilled tech employees in the years ahead. Aligning its corporate citizenship efforts with the need to provide education to the students who will fill the tech pipeline makes perfect sense for Honeywell. Its efforts in 2018 have earned Honeywell the top prize in the “Education or Scholarship Program” category of PR Daily’s Corporate Social Responsibility Awards.

The alignment led the company’s corporate citizenship initiative to create the Honeywell Educators at Space Academy (HESA) program in partnership with the U.S. Space & Rocket Center (USSRC), with middle school teachers as the program’s target, equipping them with the ability to better teach science/technology/engineering/math (STEM) topics to their students.

Leading up to 2018, the program had taught more than 3,000 teachers from 67 countries, all 50 U.S. states and two territories. They, in turn, returned to their classrooms to apply their new skills and tactics to more than 5.8 million students worldwide.

The 2018 program hosted 224 teachers from the U.S. but also from countries like the Bahamas, Bahrain, Serbia, Montenegro and the Ukraine. Honeywell also updated its curriculum, adding computer science and also a new rocketry activity, the “Raspberry Pi Rocket Sensor Package,” which allows teachers to program sensors (a mini-camera and an accelerometer) for placement aboard their model rockets. While in flight, the sensor records video and readings used in a comparison study of flight trajectories.

The 2018 program produced 232 media placements around the world, with the highest non-U.S. coverage coming from Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, all high-growth regions for Honeywell’s businesses.

Congratulations to Deborah Fonteix and Tammy Wolfe.