Troy Aikman, United Way host STEM event at Dallas school

The United Way of Metropolitan Dallas held its sixth annual STEM in the Schoolyard for Dallas students and legendary QB Troy Aikman joined the team learning about science, technology, engineering and math.

About 300 8th graders at Oliver Wendell Holmes Middle School in Oak Cliff turned their schoolyard into STEM central on Friday morning.

Improving the level of education in North Texas is one of the pillars of the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas. Aikman is winding down his record breaking year as the capital campaign chairman

“We raised over $60 million and we're still counting, so it's unprecedented and I don't know that much had to do with me,” Aikman said. “I think that every year the total gets surpassed and that's awesome.”

Since 2011 the United Way has prepared almost 200,000 local students to work their way toward a career in the stem field, which the united way says is expected to be a driving force for the economy.

“I believe that years from now they're gonna be in that field, they're gonna look back and say that time in April 2018 -- it kinda ignited something in me and created a passion,” Aikman said.

At the machine learning station students and Aikman saw how facial recognition can expand the work of computers.

“Machine learning facial recognition is predicting the future by the past,” said student Terrance Williams.

Another eighth grader, Jonathan Estrada, said he’s considering engineering.

“I want to actually be more fuel efficient, less fossil fuels,” Estrada said.

Texas Instruments, TXU Energy and mortgage servicer Mr. Cooper put on STEM in the Schoolyard and organized 150 volunteers who helped out with the event.