The U.S. National Science Foundation awarded Wake Tech, the Wake County Public School System and WakeEd Partnership a grant to integrate industry-inspired activities into math lessons. As part of the Helping Students Understand Real-World Applications of Mathematics by Connecting Industry to Math Instruction (CIMI) grant, 20 high school and community college math instructors have the opportunity to attend a two-week workshop each summer during which they spend two to three days in industry immersions and then choose a topic to create an industry-inspired application.

The goals of CIMI are as follows:

• Change classroom practice of at least 48 high school math teachers and 12 community college math instructors by increasing their use of industry-inspired activities to teach math concepts within the context of technical STEM fields
• Develop an online catalog of self-contained, validated activities to improve student skills in mathematics, critical thinking and communication. Using industry-inspired STEM scenarios, the catalog would benefit teachers and improve the course content and instructional experience for students preparing to be science and engineering technicians.
• Better align applicable high school and community college math courses by collaboratively incorporating STEM-based, career-aligned, contextualized math activities into sustainable classroom practice
• Support student recruitment into STEM fields