On Board Online • September 22, 2025
By Alan Wechsler
Special Correspondent
Ask Google who invented the acronym STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), and the AI Overview will credit Judith Ramaley, a former director of education and human resources at the National Science Foundation. In 2001, Ramaley proposed STEM to replace an earlier acronym SMET, Google says, citing an article in Education Week.
But documents and photographs examined by On Board show that a teacher in upstate New York was using the term as early as 1990. Beverly Schwartz, who taught third grade in the Troy City School District before retiring in 2007, was supported by volunteers including many affiliated with the Eastern Council of Upstate New York State Engineers. That group published the first edition of a newsletter called STEM Quarterly in February 1992 - almost a decade before the National Science Foundation started using the STEM acronym.
In May, U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko and New York State Assemblyman Phillip Steck held a ceremony to honor Schwartz at the state Legislative Office Building in Albany.
"Beverly Schwartz is recognized as a pioneer of STEM education who worked to provide tools, resources, and mentorship opportunities for elementary students, thus supporting the next generation of STEM leaders and strengthening our nation's capacity for innovation," said Tonko, who represents portions of the Capital District in Congress.
Schwartz, 74, also received a New York State Assembly proclamation for her contributions to STEM and education as a whole. Steck presented it to her before an audience of about 120 people.
A few weeks later, Schwartz recounted her career during an interview in her home in Albany County.
In 1987, she became interested in developing a "hands-on" science curriculum, she said. She was teaching in Troy's School 14, which is located a block from one of the best engineering schools in the country, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).
"I walked over there and saw a sign, 'Physics Demonstration,'" Schwartz recalled. "I went in. '"
Several RPI students volunteered to visit her classroom, where they led hands-on science lessons. The first project was to build a night-light. Students used basic circuitry, little cardboard boxes and cellophane paper. The class created a "book" on the project, which documented the process of troubleshooting faulty circuits. They also gave presentations to other classes.
"They loved it," Schwartz said. "The RPI students demonstrated, and then they broke up into groups and did a hands-on lesson."
She said she originally called her science program "Learn Tech," but students didn't like that name. Eventually, she called it STEM.
As she tells her story, she retrieves boxes of files and reams of photos of her students meeting with RPI students as well as medical students, scientists, professors and engineers.
At the time, computers were still fairly new. Schwartz's students got a glimpse when college volunteers brought them to the RPI computer lab. They might have been the first third-graders in New York State to compose an essay using a keyboard.
In another project, students built mock cities using boxes for buildings and sugar cubes for houses. The results were shared with the community in an exhibit at Troy City Hall.
Adam Friedman-Selsley was one of the RPI students who worked with Schwartz's classes. Now 56, he remembers showing Schwartz's students how to dip a banana into liquid nitrogen and then using the flash-frozen fruit to drive a nail into a board. He also performed experiments using a spinning color wheel and a jar to illustrate air pressure. He earned independent study credit for this work, but his main interest was helping an earnest teacher find ways to help young students get interested in science.
Today, he is a semiconductor process engineer at a company in Princeton, N.J. He continues to visit classrooms to promote science.
"Learning something just from a book is harder," he said. "It doesn't spark the imagination and curiosity. It's a natural thing to want to give the kids a way to see how it's done."
Word of what Schwartz was doing filtered up to the State Education Department, which sent officials to visit her classroom. Department of Education to encourage sharing of innovative and effective educational approaches. The award, which honored a New Hampshire teacher killed in the Challenger space shuttle explosion in 1986, was given annually from 1987 to 2002, when it was discontinued.
After Schwartz won the award in 1990, Astronaut G. David Low visited her classroom. Her class was also filmed by NBC Nightly News and presented by Jane Pauley on Nov. 27, 1990.
She took students to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where Schwartz met the late Christa McAuliffe's mother, Grace Corrigan.
"My program is exactly what Christa would have done, if she had lived," Schwartz said.
Schwartz also connected with Albany Medical College, seeking students who might be willing to come over and talk about biology. The medical college required students to earn "community hours," and students were more than happy to come to a classroom. This led to a memorable class with a mock surgical event, in which students used a turkey baster filled with red liquid to simulate spurting blood.
George Stasior, an ophthalmologist and medical school instructor, agreed to visit her class. Soon he was performing dissections of cow eyes as students observed. Stasior was one of Schwartz's neighbors; they first bonded over gardening.
"She made learning fun," Stasior said. "That's what I remember. She made them appreciate what they saw."
When Schwartz sought volunteers from the Eastern Council of Upstate New York State Engineers, it became successful beyond her wildest dreams. The group created a STEM Directory of Mentors in 1991 to coordinate visits by scientists, engineers and other professionals to schools in Albany, Saratoga, Schenectady and Rensselaer counties. Its members raised $3,000 to buy a Van de Graaff generator, the metallic device that generates static electricity and can make your hair stand up if you touch it.
In February 1992, the group published the first edition of the STEM Quarterly newsletter, which can be read on Schwartz's website called "The Untold History of STEM" at bit.ly/4ktbsAx .
Along the way, Schwartz had to overcome various naysayers. For instance, some industry executives (all male) evinced skepticism that a woman was running a program so heavy with science. Parents of some children expressed concern that Schwartz taught nothing but science, which was not the case. And fellow teachers? Initially, many were reluctant to adopt her unique approach. But eventually hands-on teaching techniques at the elementary level became popular in the upstate New York region, and beyond.
Her only regret is that she never sought to trademark the term STEM. "Isn't that stupid? I could have gotten money to put back into the program," she said.
What does she think of STEM being rebranded as STEAM, which includes art? Seems unnecessary, she said. She added that art, music and other forms of creativity were part of her students' experiences in the classroom, and that it is mathematical and scientific concepts that can be relevant to virtually any subject covered in school.
"STEM can be anything," she said. "I don't care. I'm not going to tell people what they can and can't do. Everyone knows what STEM is today."
It makes her happy to know she had a role in making that happen.
"This is my legacy," Schwartz said.