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CONCORD, Mass., Feb. 27, 2006 — SolidWorks Corporation today announced it would grant SolidWorks® Student Edition CAD software to as many as 1,000 individual U.S. educators in a new initiative aimed at improving students' math skills and their interest in technology-related careers.

The SolidWorks-STEM Educators grant – whose acronym stands for science, technology, engineering, and math – includes training and lesson plans to help teachers and faculty from middle school through college integrate the four separate disciplines for more effective education.

With backing by the National Science Foundation (NSF), STEM is an emerging movement in American education, which is increasingly realizing that global competitiveness requires students to be technologically literate. STEM addresses academic warning signs such as a new study funded by the Department of Education that found that U.S. math students in 4th and 8th grade perform consistently below peers around the world and continue that trend into high school.

"STEM Education is absolutely critical for the U.S. to lead the world in high technology innovation," said Dr. Krishna Vedula, executive chairman of the Massachusetts STEM Collaborative and former dean of engineering at the University of Massachusetts – Lowell. "STEM integrates 'pure' math and science with the disciplines to which they're applied, and CAD software can play an integral role in this endeavor."