Cleveland District Gets STEM Lab Funded by Cavs and Goodyear

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 05/28/2019

A sports team and a tire maker have funded the refurbishing of a STEM lab for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. The Cleveland Cavaliers and the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company have pledged a million dollars of support to the Cleveland district and Akron Public Schools. As part of that, the two organizations committed to the remodel, which converted a storage room into the new lab, where district teachers will be able to add design and fabrication to their lessons.

Source: The Cleveland Cavaliers

Currently, the lab has four 3D printers. Plans call for adding more 3D printers as well as laser and vinyl cutters and other digital fabrication equipment.

"It's amazing," said Sarah Wallace, who oversees Cleveland's MC²STEM High School's Mobile Fab Lab, in a statement. "And it's just going to get better and better as we put more equipment and people in there. When teachers know more about it, we're going to be pushing people away."

Source: The Cleveland Cavaliers

During a ribbon cutting, Cavs CEO Len Komoroski explained to students from several schools how important STEM education was to the professional basketball team. "From working with data and analytics on and off the court, to working with the ice in vending machines, we use STEM every day," he said.

Added Todd Macsuga, general manager for brand marketing for Goodyear, "There are opportunities all throughout Goodyear in STEM, from design and manufacturing our tires to piloting the blimp."

Source: The Cleveland Cavaliers

This is the second STEM lab opened by the Cavs and Goodyear this spring. In April, the organizations unveiled a renovated middle school STEM Lab at Akron's Buchtel Community Learning Center.