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OTTUMWA, IOWA -- Is it a struggle to get your kids to do their math or science homework?

Monday evening John Deere Ottumwa Works sponsored a “Mom’s Night Out for STEM”  (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) at the Advanced Technology Building at Indian Hills Community College.

The goal was to promote fun, hands-on activities that incorporate STEM which can be done with their children.

“How can we make it fun and attract more kids to it? Because there's a ton of job opportunities and with the way the world's going, there's going to be a ton more and not enough people to fill these jobs later on in the future. So you got to get them started young,” said Kelli Martino, a manufacturing engineer at John Deere Ottumwa Works.

Martino and other John Deere employees spoke about the wide variety of careers to be had in STEM..

Speaking positively and finding active ways to incorporate STEM will likely motivate your children to work harder in those subject areas.

“So if your child's big into sports, you could possibly figure out what -- say if they're a Hawkeye fan -- you can figure out what the coach makes per game or what his salary is and then you could even go further and say, okay if you made that much money you could buy so many bikes or so many video games,” said Amber Pargmann, an engineering team leader at John Deere Ottumwa Works.

This was just one of the 26 sites in Iowa that put on a “Mom’s Night Out for STEM.”