The National Hockey League Players’ Association and the National Hockey League announced Sept. 9 the launch of the NHL & NHLPA Future Goals Program, an initiative that will bring interactive education opportunities to each of the 30 NHL team markets in the U.S. and Canada, as well as hundreds of additional communities.
The program is being powered by Washington, D.C.-based EverFi, an education technology company focused on teaching, assessing, badging and certifying students in critical skills.
“We are extraordinarily excited about the partnership on Future Goals,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said in a statement. “Our clubs and our players coming together to create an educational program that emphasizes the science, technology, engineering and math curriculum, and uses the game of hockey as a platform to accomplish good social engagement — there could be no better cause for us to work on together.”
“The NHL and NHLPA are together making a historic investment in STEM-based education and we’re excited to bring the strength of our North American network to power this initiative,” EverFi Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Jon Chapman said. “This program is going to bring much-needed digital learning tools to thousands of schools and help our teachers prepare today’s students to be college-ready, career-ready and life-ready.”
The Future Goals program will help students learn to leverage their access to technology resources in a safe and responsible way. Using the fast-paced game of hockey as a learning vehicle, students will be able to understand the real-world application of key science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) topics. The program also introduces students to significant future career opportunities that exist in STEM-related fields.
“The players are proud to be part of the Future Goals educational program,” Mathieu Schneider said, NHLPA Special Assistant to the Executive Director. “This program is designed to use technology and real life hockey examples as a way to teach kids the STEM curriculum. Our hope is that this program will give teachers a helping hand in the classroom by bringing these topics to life.”
In conjunction with the start of the 2014-15 NHL season, elementary school students across the U.S. will have free access to the Future Goals curriculum, which will be implemented with the direct support of teachers.
