Education & Workforce Development

In 2008, Dell started using post-consumer recycled plastics sourced from water bottles and milk jugs in our products. In 2013, we took it a step further and started putting plastics from e-waste recovered via Dell’s recycling programs back into new products. But we felt there were more ways we could contribute.

The need to prepare students for the future of work is now imperative. To address essential 21st century skills in our nation’s K-12 school system, educators are turning toward a new framework for problem-solving: computational thinking.

Tyson Foods’ Upward Academy, an in-plant education program that provides classes at no cost, recently surpassed 100,000 hours of instruction to more than 1,000 of the company’s team members.

Upward Academy launched in 2016 at one of the company’s plants in Springdale, Arkansas, and is now offered in 27 facilities in Arkansas, Missouri, Texas and North Carolina. Forty plants are projected to offer the program by the end of September 2018, and expansion will continue over the next several years to cover the company’s entire footprint.

Caterpillar is dedicated to building a global engineering talent pipeline, critical not only to our continued global growth and competitiveness, but also to the success of our communities. Caterpillar encourages students around the world to pursue STEM careers by investing significantly in STEM programs and initiatives.

JetBlue (NASDAQ:JBLU) today announced the newest round of grants provided by the JetBlue Foundation, a STEM education-focused entity which furthers the airline’s efforts to place aviation top-of-mind as a career choice for students. This year, the JetBlue Foundation is fueling 12 aviation programs with nearly $250,000 in grants to support their science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) based initiatives.

We need Michigan’s brightest minds to help us meet the energy challenges of a new millennium such as rebuilding our electric and natural gas infrastructure and adding more renewable sources to our generation mix. And that need is urgent because, like many companies, a large number of our most talented and experienced employees are beginning to leave the workforce.

What happens when we confront stereotypes head-on? Sometimes, it makes for uncomfortable—but important—conversations.

Teachers, parents and guardians from the Territories (Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the Yukon) are joining their counterparts in all provinces to talk about money and help young people get a head start in their financial education. They are participating in Talk With Our Kids About Money Day (TWOKAM Day). The educational program, created by the Canadian Foundation for Economic Education (CFEE) and supported by Scotiabank, is celebrating its sixth anniversary.

We’ve seen firsthand how gardens transform communities, but even more so, people’s lives. Here’s the story of one of those gardens, the Beneficial Beans Garden at the Southwest Autism Research & Resource Center in Phoenix, Arizona.