The project aims to serve the national need of recruiting and retaining highly qualified middle/high school STEM educators. The U.S. has a dire teacher shortage with many thousands of STEM teacher jobs unfilled at the high school and middle school levels. This Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program Track 1 Project at Tennessee Technological University project aims to prepare 22 middle/high school STEM educators to teach in the rural Upper Cumberland region. This project has the potential to significantly increase the number of licensed STEM teachers produced by Tennessee Tech University and contribute to alleviating the national shortage. The project plans to leverage rigorous recruitment and retention strategies such as providing: (1) an early teaching experience internship; (2) the opportunity to take an introductory education course; (3) support and mentoring while Scholars obtain their STEM degree and licensure, and (4) help Scholars transition into the broader STEM education community during their first year of teaching and beyond. This project at Tennessee Tech University includes partnerships with four high-need local education agencies (LEAs) in the rural Upper Cumberland region: Jackson, Overton, Putnam, and White counties. Project goals include (1) recruiting 25 early teaching experience (ETE) interns (2) graduating 22 job-ready STEM educators with both a STEM degree and teaching licensure, (3) enhancing scholars' instructional skills so that they are better p