A total of 30,000 hats will be handed out this season as a new school is visited each month.
"This is the first stop on the tour," said Panthers Senior Vice President Shawn Thornton, who personally signed and handed out the '47 Brand caps to one special classroom.
"With Everfi, floorball and our 'Learn to Play' program, our organization, from the top down, is all about grassroots and trying to grow the game at the beginner level. We're going to play some floorball here today. We have around 30,000 kids in our Everfi. Every time we can put a hockey stick in a kid's hand or put a hat on their head, we're creating another fan."
As part of the NHL and NHLPA Future Goals program, Everfi's Hockey Scholar software guides students through 12 different hockey-themed learning modules that test their knowledge on core STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) concepts. Since its launch in 2014, Future Goals has reached more than 375,000 students throughout the United States and Canada.
"There's so many concepts that us science, math, technology and engineering in the game of hockey that it just makes sense to bring STEM learning through the dynamic sport of hockey into these classrooms," said Emily Maloney, Everfi's school manager for South Florida. "It really allows students to see how the different concepts in STEM can be used in the real world.
"When they're watching a game of hockey, they can now understand how the ice is made and how science and math was brought into that, or how the kinetic energy of the puck rising and falling during a faceoff can be related to what they learned in their science and math classes."
For JetBlue, the pep rally helped kick off the airline's "JetBlue For Good Month."
"We always have a great partnership doing things in the community with the Panthers all year long," said Jason Annunziata, JetBlue's director of airport operations. "I think it's a fantastic opportunity to bring education, first and foremost, to the kids. It's not just education, sports and travel, but rather an understanding that STEM education traverses through all of life. These things actually do apply, so pay attention in school."
Whether you're looking at floorball or flight paths, students are learning STEM is everywhere.
"We're able to tie it all together as part of our health and wellness program," said Linda Gancitano, a P.E. teacher at Driftwood Middle School. "It's a perfect match"
