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Diversity in STEM
Google, Hispanic Heritage Foundation Team Up On STEM Program For Summer School (Fox News Latino)
Latinos and African-Americans currently make up 13 percent of the workforce in the United States. Of that number, only 3 percent are involved in STEM careers. And although there are currently about 4 million unfilled jobs, many minorities do not have the skills and training to succeed in these fields. The Hispanic Heritage Foundation�s Leaders on the Fast Track (LOFT) program has connected with Google and the educational organization, Practice Makes Perfect, to help summer school students develop useful skills in STEM fields. All three organizations were on hand last week at Brooklyn�s Intermediate School 392. �We�re trying to help inner city youth and this is exactly our target audience,� said Santiago Amieva, program manager for the Hispanic Heritage Foundation.
EBay�s Workforce Is More Diverse Than Peers, Report Shows (Bloomberg)
EBay Inc. (EBAY) said women make up 42 percent of its staff and 7 percent of its U.S. employees are black, a more diverse workforce than many other Silicon Valley technology companies. In a report today, the e-commerce company said 24 percent of its technical employees are female, along with 28 percent of its leadership ranks. Of EBay�s total U.S. workforce, 5 percent are Hispanic, while 85 percent are white or Asian, San Jose, California-based EBay said. By comparison, diversity reports from Facebook Inc. (FB), Google Inc. and Twitter Inc. (TWTR) disclosed that women make up about 30 percent of staff and blacks about 2 percent.
Interested in Science Communication? Apply for Science Writers 2014 Diversity Travel Fellowship (Scientific American)
If you are interested in [STEM] and want to learn more about training and career opportunities in science communication, and then here is a chance to attend the Annual Meeting of Science Writers. Announcing the National Association of Science Writers (NASW) Diversity Travel Fellowship. Sponsored by a generous NASW Idea Grant, these travel awards (5 at $1,000 each) were created to encourage underrepresented minorities in science journalism to attend the ScienceWriters2014 conference (October 17-21; Columbus, OH). US based underrepresented minority journalists are encouraged to apply especially African-, Hispanic-, and Native-Americans who have journalism experience in STEM, medicine, health, environment, technology, etc. 
Government
NASA Unveils Its Next Mars Rover (Mashable)
NASA unveiled its plans for the 2020 Mars rover on Thursday, and though its design may look familiar, it's got a lot of new gadgets under the hood. The new rover will be based on the same framework as Curiosity, the two-ton rover that landed on Mars two years ago and is currently driving around, picking up dirt samples and drilling into rocks. However, what makes the next rover special is that it will take all those same samples and store them for a possible return to Earth by a future � perhaps manned � mission to Mars. Curiosity currently stores small samples, but keeping them impedes her arm movement, and she has to regularly dump them and move on. NASA engineers and scientists didn't think about this problem when building the rover.
Engineering Education: The U.S. Department of Education Releases Innovative Initiatives (ED)
The Department of Education (ED) has announced a new round of experimental sites, or ex-sites, to provide flexibility to design programs that serve students better. The new ex-sites will promote competency-based education (CBE), as well as prior learning assessments and near-peer counseling among college and high school students. Ex-sites give institutions the ability to be more creative about ways they can reduce costs and increase success in higher education. Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell, said �To help more Americans succeed � and position our nation to lead � in the years ahead, we need to give students better, faster, more flexible paths to strong academic and career outcomes.�
Viewpoints
Nkem Khumbah (STEM-Africa Initiative, University of Michigan) & Melvin P. Foote (Founder, Constituency for Africa): Africa Needs Science, Not Aid (New York Times)
When John F. Kennedy came to the University of Michigan to campaign for president in the fall of 1960, Africa was plagued with trade and governance challenges far more daunting than those it faces today. The young senator recognized that African nations � like other countries emerging from colonialism � were preoccupied with developing basic literacy and manpower. And so he urged students to go abroad and help them. The spirited response resulted in one of America�s greatest gifts to the world: the Peace Corps. Next week, President Obama is convening a U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington; the stated objective is �Investing in the Next Generation.� But the summit�s focus on private sector deals won�t necessarily further that goal. There is a way to make a lasting and low-cost investment in Africa�s next generation: Mr. Obama must bring education � and science and technology in particular � to the forefront of the debate about African development.
Higher Education
2U, Southern Methodist University launch data science master's degree (Washington Business Journal)
2U Inc. named its latest expansion Thursday, launching an online graduate program in data science at Southern Methodist University. The master of science degree program, dubbed DataScience@SMU, is expected to start in January. It will offer a courses in "computer science, statistics, strategic behavior, and data visualization," according to a news release. The program pulls from SMU's Meadows School of the Arts, Lyle School of Engineering and Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences. For Landover-based 2U (Nasdaq: TWOU), the move represents a step toward broadening its base of customers and subject areas..
Maker Movement
Raspberry Pi HAT Specification Released (MAKE)
Arduino has shields. BeagleBone has capes. And now Raspberry Pi has HATs. The Raspberry Pi Foundation officially announced their specification for add-on boards for their new Model B+ single board computer, which just started shipping. HAT stands for �Hardware Attached on Top� and is meant to make it easier for the end user to add hardware to their Pi. As with BeagleBone capes, the spec includes the physical layout of the boards and on-board I2C EEPROM memory to hold information about the manufacturer, GPIO setup, and device tree fragment, which is a way for Linux to properly configure the pins to use the hardware on the HAT.
South Carolina
Tentative agreement reached on SC Common Core (AP)
Common Core standards will be considered by teachers crafting new reading and math benchmarks for South Carolina students, state Education Department officials said Thursday. The six-month, stepped-up process could take teachers selected by the department out of the classroom for up to a month's worth of meetings. The stance marks a change from what Republican Superintendent Mick Zais told the media earlier this month. Agency spokesman Dino Teppara said Zais spoke "in-artfully" when he said he would direct the panels to ignore Common Core entirely and not even provide them a copy. Zais wanted to stress that the standards implemented in August 2015 won't be a simple rebranding of Common Core, Teppara said.
Missouri
Local Fort Leonard Wood school receives $300,000 STEM-focused grant (Rolla Daily News)
Waynesville R-VI School District recently received a $300,000 grant from the Department of Defense Educational Authority (DoDEA), which will help the school implement the first National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) college readiness program in the state of Missouri. The NMSI college readiness program will focus on raising the academic bar in public schools and changing school leadership�s expectations of students. The program encourages more students to take college-level math and science courses and makes it easier by eliminating barriers, including cost. The program has specifically demonstrated that more students can master rigorous math and science course work.
STEM Food & Ag
FoodCorps Teaches Kids to Grow Their Own Food (Modern Farmer)
.jpg) One way to reverse childhood obesity? Teach a kid to fall in love with a vegetable simply because they grew it themselves. FoodCorps, a grassroots farm-to-school program, does just this. About 182 AmeriCorps service members are sent to limited resource communities all around the country, focusing on school districts with a 50 percent or higher rate of free and reduced lunches. Service members teach classes in gardening and nutrition and hold taste demos and cooking lessons. The goal? Get the teachers, the parents and the whole community involved in healthy eating. And the service members themselves learn about agriculture and food cultivation in the process. We chatted with four FoodCorps service members in four vastly different service sites across the U.S. to ask about their daily experiences and some of the challenges that they�ve encountered.
CSU plays big role in USDA's new agriculture carbon pollution measurement tool (Denver Business Journal)
Colorado State University will play a big part in the development of a new U.S. Department of Agriculture online tool that will allow farmers to improve carbon storage and reduce emissions. The tool was announced Thursday as part of a USDA report that measures greenhouse gas impact on farming tasks like tillage, buffer strips and fertilizing. That report, which the USDA began researching in 2008, is meant to help the environment and simultaneously save farmers and ranchers money. CSU faculty participated in authoring the report, and a university team will lead the implementation of the new tool. Stephen Ogle, associate professor in CSU�s Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability and senior scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, was one of the authors of the report.
STEM Innovation
Emerson to build $20 million innovation center in Ohio (St. Louis Business Journal)
 Emerson Climate Technologies will spend $20 million to build a new innovation center on University of Dayton�s campus, according to a statement from the school. The 40,000-square-foot center will employ as many as 50 people and is slated to be complete late next year. The center will focus on research and education for the global heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVACR) industry. St. Louis-based Emerson (NYSE: EMR) is a $24.7 billion technology and engineering company. �Nowhere else will you find a similar facility where academic researchers and industry participants can come together under one roof to dialogue and develop and test technology solutions through various real-world applications,� Ed Purvis, executive vice president of Emerson Climate Technologies, said in a statement. |
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 STEMconnector�
Project Scientist Scholars Program Launches This Summer
 Extending its promise to educate, coach, and advocate for girls with an aptitude, talent, and passion for STEM, Project Scientist, in partnership with Bank of America and The NASCAR Foundation, launched the Project Scientist Scholars program this summer in Charlotte. The Scholars program is built for girls ages 12-16 and extends the pipeline of the non-profit which runs the Project Scientist Academy for girls ages 4-11. Fifteen girls are participating in the five-week STEM summer camp that runs from July 7 to August 8 at Queens University. The campers are students at Collinswood Language Academy and Oaklawn Language Academy. They were recommended by teachers and school administrators and submitted applications to join the program. The NASCAR Foundation donated $20,000 to the program and provided unique opportunities for the Scholars to visit the NASCAR Research and Development Center and a NASCAR Wind Tunnel.
California STEM Weekly: August 1, 2014
 Don't miss out on this week's California STEM Weekly- featuring STEM news on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's $100K Gift Program to focus on funding community STEM programs, California State University has been awarded a $500,000 grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to study impact of STEM initiatives, Foothill College wraps up its Summer STEM camps, investments in LA's Tech Startup scene have tripled in past 5 years, and much more!
Report Recommends New Approach to U.S. Manufacturing�s Youth Outreach and Training
 With over 600,000 positions currently vacant and over half of their workforce just a few years from retirement, U.S. manufacturing firms face a serious lack of young, skilled workers. Immediate changes in career education and training are needed to ensure the industry can meet its future hiring needs. Hope Street Group, a nonprofit organization focused on U.S. economic opportunity, released a report today that highlights student, educator and employer perspectives into this issue, along with strategies for manufacturing employers to collaborate with educators on youth outreach and training. The report, Missing Makers: How to Rebuild America�s Manufacturing Workforce, found that American youth are getting fewer opportunities to experience technical trades directly. This problem is exacerbated by systemic challenges that prevent educators and employers from creating opportunities to expose young people to manufacturing careers.
NAPE Education Foundation Partners with Freescale Foundation to Provide Professional Development in Austin Independent School District
 The National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE) Education Foundation will receive funding and support from the Freescale Foundation for teacher professional development programming for 25 secondary science and mathematics teachers and instructional specialists in the Austin Independent School District (AISD) in Texas. The Freescale Foundation is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization focused on [STEM]. The research-based professional development program, Micromessaging to Reach and Teach Every Student (Micromessaging), is designed to increase the success of students in STEM with an emphasis on underrepresented populations, including females, minorities, and low-income students. |
