NSTI program helps provide STEM opportunities through education focused on intellectual property
The USPTO will conduct the National Summer Teacher Institute (NSTI) on Innovation, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), and Intellectual Property during the week of July 19-23, 2021. The program is virtual this year. Teachers can apply to participate online through June 7.
Participants are introduced to teacher-friendly materials designed to enhance student learning, and inspire the next generation of inventors, entrepreneurs, and problem-solvers.
During a time of increasing emphasis on STEM disciplines for students and would-be inventors, and the essential protections afforded by intellectual property, NSTI combines experiential training tools, practices, and project-based learning models to support elementary, middle, and high school teachers to improve their knowledge of making, inventing, and innovation.
NSTI’s main focus is the creation and protection of intellectual property: inventions, knowledge discovery, creative ideas, and expressions of the human mind that may have commercial value and be protectable under patent, trademark, copyright, or trade secret laws.
Intellectual property is modeled as a teaching and learning platform to help inspire and motivate student achievement in STEM disciplines, computer science, and other fields of study such as innovation and entrepreneurship.
Presentation speakers and hands-on workshop instructors include USPTO experts, noted scientists and engineers, entrepreneurs, and representatives from other federal government agencies and nonprofit organizations. NSTI, which has been recognized as an exemplar of the federal government, is conducted by the Office of Education at the USPTO.
To learn more about NSTI and to apply: uspto.gov/teacherinstitute
