How Can Model Railroading Teach STEM?

Model railroading is uniquely primed for doing educational outreach today, says Stacey Walthers Naffah, President of Milwaukee-based Walthers. Walthers is a major model railroading company, distributing and manufacturing products for hobbyists around the world. Stacey discusses how the industry has a big opportunity to add to K-12 education, in history, science, technology, engineering, art, and math, whether it involves wifi-controlled trains or teaching kids to properly scale down 3D models. She shares that Walthers is looking for more ideas about how to partner with educators. Related to this episode: • Walthers: https://www.walthers.com/ • Profile of Stacey Walthers Naffah: https://onmilwaukee.com/market/articles/milwaukee-talks-stacey-walthers-naffah.html • Contact Walthers with ideas: [email protected] • Family business programs, Northwestern: https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/executive-education/individual-programs/executive-programs/fambiz.aspx • NSTA blog post https://www.nsta.org/resources/building-steam-model-railroads • World’s Greatest Hobby nonprofit organization: http://wgh.trains.com/ • Discovery World, Milwaukee: https://www.discoveryworld.org/ • Rail transport modelling scale standards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_transport_modelling_scale_standards • Walther’s National Model Railroad Build-off contest: https://trains.walthers.com/hubfs/Walthers_How_To_Submit.mp4 Subscribe and find more podcast information at: http://www.k12engineering.net. Support Pios Labs with regular donations on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pioslabs, or send one-time contributions by buying us coffee: https://ko-fi.com/pioslabs. Thanks to our donors and listeners for making the show possible. The K12 Engineering Education Podcast is a production of Pios Labs: http://www.pioslabs.com.