TEMPLE, Texas — The Temple Independent School District had the opportunity to showcase its STEM education partnership with Meta to a group of Temple area community leaders earlier this week.
A group of more than 20 elected officials, City of Temple and Temple College administrators, community business leaders and Temple ISD board members and administrators joined together to visit two Temple campuses and the Meta Temple Data Center construction site. The goal of the tour was to demonstrate how Temple ISD students and staff are benefitting from Meta’s support of the district’s STEM programs and give the attendees a first-hand look at the progress of Meta’s Temple Data Center. The leaders selected to attend the tour have played major roles in helping attract Meta to Temple and in providing continued support to Temple ISD.
“Meta has been an incredible partner in helping enhance the educational opportunities available to Temple students,” said Brynn Myers, Temple City Manager. “Their continued investment in STEM programs at both the elementary and high school level, alongside the innovative curriculum developed by Temple ISD, is paving the way for our students to thrive in a technology-driven world. We are deeply grateful for Meta’s support and TISD’s commitment to preparing our future leaders through creative and impactful learning experiences.”
The tour started at Kennedy-Powell Elementary School, which serves as TISD’s elementary STEM academy. Students demonstrated three different stations, all made possible by generous donations from Meta. One station had students using block computer coding to record themselves saying different messages, another had them using Lego building blocks to create soccer goals and programming motors to move them from side-to-side, and the final station highlighted students programming Sphero robots and building boats to support them on water.
Next, the group visited Meta’s Temple Data Center for an update on construction progress and a guided bus tour of the facility.
The tour concluded at Temple High School with two more demonstration groups of TISD students. Health services students demonstrated how they use virtual reality goggles during their lessons to create DNA or battle viruses at the molecular level. Another group of students flew drones through obstacle courses in their classroom and let a few of the attendees try their hand at the controls. Support from Meta also helped the high school CTE department upgrade the equipment in both of those areas.
“Meta has been a part of the Temple community since 2022 when we broke ground on our data center,” said Holli Davies, Community Development Manager for Meta. “One of our top priorities is to build relationships with our local school districts and our students, teachers, and families, and to provide opportunities in STEM for the kiddos to explore career pathways and really understand what that means and get them excited. What we did today was bring in some of our community leaders to see some of the great work that Temple ISD is doing. Meta has a small part to play to support that and we could not be more proud of our partnership with Temple ISD.”
The partnership between Temple ISD and Meta has also provided other benefits to the district’s STEM initiatives beyond helping fund the purchase of upgraded equipment and devices for the students. Temple ISD has also held district-wide STEM events like “Spring Into STEM” and “To STEMfinity and Beyond” with support from Meta. Temple College also hosted a STEM summer camp and Meta support helped provide transportation for Temple ISD students to attend.
“When attracting businesses, our community leaders are always interested in how prospects plan on giving back because it leads to a different level of community investment,” said Dr. Bobby Ott, superintendent of schools for Temple ISD. “This event was an opportunity to pull community leaders out of their day-to-day problem-solving meetings and peek under the hood of Temple ISD, Meta’s involvement, and student learning. TISD is grateful for our deeply rooted partnerships and look forward to working on behalf of one another for the benefit of all.”