Fun, Games and Brighter Futures

For two years now, 3M has worked with the great DoSomething.org to get kids interested in STEM. Why? The STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and math – are hugely important to our company and companies like ours that are on the cutting edge of scientific advancement. And what that means for students is that they will graduate equipped to succeed in the world they will find outside their classrooms.

As any parent will tell you, the best way to get young people engaged in a topic is to make it fun and interesting. So we turned to a texting-based game called 3M Science Sleuth, where young people had to put their STEM skills to work to solve a mystery – with the help of 3M scientists and a celebrity partner, Yara Shahidi.

We just wrapped up the second year of the program, and we’ve now seen more than 193,000 young people participate and unlock $200,000 to support STEM activities in their classrooms. So this week? We celebrated.

We appreciate the award DoSomething.org gave us this week – and definitely celebrated! – but the truth is that investing in our students is investing in our future. 3M has been around and thriving for more than a century. We’ve never underestimated the importance of inspiring the next generation of scientists, innovators and inventors.

That is why our work with DoSomething.org – along with our many other investments in STEM– has been so important and so rewarding. An education rich in the STEM fields will mean not just better jobs, but meaningful work – for everyone.