ST. PETERSBURG \u2014\u00a0Jobs in science, technology, engineering and math are projected to boom in the next decade.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects STEM occupations\u00a0to grow by\u00a0more than 8% from 2024 to 2034<\/a>.<\/p>\n To encourage the next generation to fill some of those openings, the St. Petersburg Science Festival returned to the University of South Florida\u2019s St. Petersburg campus.<\/p>\n What You Need To Know<\/p>\n The St. Petersburg Science Festival<\/a> and MarineQuest<\/a> returned to the University of South Florida St. Petersburg Families got to explore all different kinds of science.<\/p>\n Playing with robots can be a lot of fun, especially for Ethan and Ryan.\u00a0<\/p>\n But for Ethan, the St. Petersburg Science Festival is more than just fun. The ten-year-old said he is interested in working in STEM.<\/p>\n \u201cI come every year because I love science and being a scientist might be one of my career options,\u201d Ethan said.<\/p>\n Next door to the festival was MarineQuest, hosted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.<\/p>\n Between the two events, there were 150 interactive exhibits and about 10,000 attendees.<\/p>\n The goal is to show children niche roles in STEM fields and possibly inspire a career.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere is an incredible demand around the Tampa Bay region for STEAM jobs, everything from someone who does aerial drone piloting to helping us to preserve this wonderful waterfront and habitat,\u201d said Alison Barlow, Co-chair of the St. Petersburg Science Festival and CEO of the St. Petersburg Innovation District.<\/p>\n The Bay Area isn\u2019t alone. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects STEM opportunities to grow through 2034.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s also a lot of jobs emerging now that I never even knew existed when I was young, and so we want to introduce a nugget about those so that maybe they\u2019ll think about them also in the future,\u201d Barlow said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a need that these thousands of visitors might just one day fill.\u00a0<\/p>\n While Ethan is considering his options, he said he wants something that\u2019s creative.<\/p>\n \u201cI have what I think is a different thought process than other kids,\u201d Ethan said.<\/p>\n While today\u2019s event was geared toward younger kids, the state has some incentives for older kids.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2021, the state legislature passed a bill that created some college tuition discounts.<\/p>\n It can offer up to a 50% discount on certain upper-level undergraduate courses in several STEM fields.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG \u2014\u00a0Jobs in science, technology, engineering and math are projected to boom in the next decade. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[113,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,1374,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-147832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-education","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-pinellas-county","11":"tag-st-pete","12":"tag-st-pete-headlines","13":"tag-st-pete-news","14":"tag-st-petersburg","15":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","16":"tag-st-petersburg-news","17":"tag-tampa","18":"tag-tyler-oneill","19":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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The two events had 150 interactive exhibits and about 10,000 visitors
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Organizers hope that the festival is fun and inspiring\u00a0
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The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is expecting STEM occupations\u00a0to grow by\u00a0more than 8% from 2024 to 2034<\/p>\n