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Diversity
Girlstart inspires next generation of women STEM professionals with innovative summer camp (Bellevue Reporter)
For the eighth straight year, Girlstart brought its nationally-recognized, award-winning STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education programming, via the Girlstart to-Go program, to various cities around the nation. Last week, the camp at the Boys & Girls Club of Bellevue culminated its week-long program that showcased fourth and fifth grade girls STEM skills. The girls demonstrated a range of projects created for its Under the Sea camp. The activities tied STEM fields to hands-on activities throughout the week. For example, students designed and created cages to protect sea turtle eggs to learn what conservationists do, constructed a prosthetic limb for a dolphin as an orthotist would, and constructed an ocean drifter model by putting marine engineering principles into practice.
Women coders respond to ex-Googler Damore: Nope. (USA Today)
The ex-Google engineer fired for suggesting women are innately less apt at computing has doubled down on his criticism of diversity efforts, suggesting programs to bring women and girls into coding are "deceitful" and encourage a "victim mentality." The response from women in the field to James Damore: Check your data. There have been multiple essays, analyses, articles and first-person pieces responding to Damore's 3,500 word memo. Their overriding complaint is that Damore cherry-picks data to support his argument that biological differences between the genders explain why there are more men than women in technical and leadership positions at Google and thus, Google's efforts to increase the numbers of women are sexist and unfair.
K-12
K-12 students embark on STEM journeys with Fulton Schools Summer Academy (ASU)
Summer is a great time for students to get out of the classroom and explore new things. For K-12 students who spend a week of their summer with Arizona State Universitys Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, that means exploring science and engineering fields and life on a college campus. The Fulton Schools Summer Academy actively engages participants in hands-on STEM activities and empowers them to seek out other STEM opportunities beyond their summer experience at ASU. Fulton Schools Summer Academy provides a unique opportunity for students to come to campus and see themselves as an ASU student and explore a wide variety of camps, from robots to apps to solar energy to physics to coding, said Hope Parker, associate director of engineering K-12 outreach. It really gives them a chance to dive into something theyre interested in, whether they know a lot about it or not.
How New Science Standards Avoided the Backlash of Common Core (WSJ)
After the Common Core standards in reading and math ran into backlash from critics claiming federal overreach, the supporters of new science standards decided to take a different tack. They explicitly asked the Obama administration to sit out the promotion of the science guidelines. They also encouraged states to take time to get local buy-in. The strategy appears to have paid off. Since 2013, 18 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards for kindergarten through 12th grade. Another 16 revised their goals to be similar. Teachers nationwide are adjusting to these expectations, which aim to inspire more hands-on problem-solving instead of regurgitating facts.
Pensacola's National Flight Academy celebrates 10,000th student (Pensacola News Journal)
The National Flight Academy at Pensacola's National Naval Aviation Museum celebrated its 10,000th student on Wednesday. The academy, a mock aircraft carrier where students learn math and science skills by solving aviation-related problems, opened in 2012. Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Duane Thiessen, president of the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation, said the academy has set the standard for science, technology, engineering and math education. Students live on the mock aircraft carrier during the weekly camps. They work in teams and use flight simulators and other technology to solve aviation-related problems from flight instructors.
Higher Education
Funding to provide scholarships for Binghamton University STEM students (Binghamton Homepage)
The federal government is helping some under-privileged students attend Binghamton University to study STEM fields. B.U. is receiving over $4 million from the National Science Foundation to support students pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering and math. The grant is specifically focused on students who are looking to transfer from SUNY Broome or Queensborough Community College. The money will cover tuition scholarships for low-income or underrepresented students as well as some support programs at all 3 schools.
Tektronix founder's centennial prompts ode to STEM education (Oregon Business)
Melvin Jack Murdock, a co-founder and vice president of Oregon's seminal tech company, Tektronix, was born on August 15, 1917 in Portland. On Tuesday of this week he would have been 100 years old. Murdock was elected as Chairman of the Board in 1960 and held this position until his unexpected death on May 16, 1971, at age 53, in a float plane accident on the Columbia River. His body was never recovered. Murdock was both an idealist and a realist, and relentlessly sought new insights in all areas of his life. He believed in science as a main source of knowledge and in knowledge as a key ingredient to addressing and solving our worlds issues and challenges.
Viewpoints
Meghan Groome: Is the Investment in STEM Education Paying Off? (US News)
For more than two decades there has been a hefty investment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education in the United States. There is no question that this investment has, at the very least, brought the positives derived from better STEM education practices into the national conversation. The goal of STEM education is to prepare a generation of citizens capable of making evidence-based decisions required for the innovative fields that are driving the 21st-century economy. And to that end, the U.S.'s investment is working. However, this commitment will need to continue in order to ensure accessibility to a quality STEM education for all students if the U.S. is to remain globally competitive over the long term.
Solar Eclipse
For Schools, an Eclipse Conundrum: To Open or Close? For Fun or for Science? (The 74)
As America prepares for the moons shadow to darken the suns path across the United States on Monday, Aug. 21, school districts from Idaho to Colorado to the Southeastern states are buying protective glasses so students can witness the nations first coast-to-coast solar eclipse in 99 years with their own eyes. But various districts are seeing the celestial event in very different lights. Some educators view it as an opportunity for students to get outside and bask in the glow of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Others see danger, compelled to keep students indoors, out of the shadows.
Telescope chain spanning U.S. will create unprecedented eclipse video (Detroit Free Press)
The last time David Gerdes saw the sun get blotted out, he was 15. "If you didn't know what was going on, it's easy to see why people were terrified of eclipses," said Gerdes, now 53 and a physics and astronomy professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "It's a very overwhelming sensation to be in the middle of this world that suddenly goes dark." With a little telescope he made in his basement, Gerdes persuaded his friends and science teacher in winter 1979 to travel from Ohio more than 1,300 miles to see the solar eclipse in Manitoba, Canada. On Monday, they'll reunite at a ranch near Corvalis, Ore., where Gerdes will join an unprecedented experiment he hopes will inspire other future scientists.
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 STEMconnector®
Former Football Player turned Full-Time Mathematician, John Urschel, kicks-off the #GenSTEM contest to get kids pumped up to go back to school
 To get more students excited about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects as they head back to school, Texas Instruments (TI) teamed up with newly-retired Baltimore Raven John Urschel to kick-off the #GenSTEM contest. The goal is to show todays generation of STEM students (#GenSTEM) that whatever they are in to, whether its cooking or fashion or football, STEM is in it too. John Urschel: Life after Football... The 63, 305-pound former lineman recently did the unexpected by hanging up his football cleats to focus on his growing family and mathematics full-time. I will always remember and cherish my days playing football, but Im looking forward to focusing fully on pursuing my doctoral degree at MIT and being the best mathematician I can be, said Urschel. Im excited to continue to work to inspire young people in STEM subjects like mathematics, showing them the many doors that this path can open for them.
Carie Lemack: From STEM to Stern- A New Era for Space-Based Research aboard the International Space Station
 If STEM is to be more than a thin and fragile stem of education, we must emphasize the importance of this subject and the urgency of learning this discipline. That means we need students and workers - from children and teachers to doctors and lawyers - to be, at a minimum, conversant in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. If STEM is to flourish, it must first flower in classrooms nationwide: It must win the hearts and minds of the public by directing their attention from the earth to the heavens. We must highlight the value of space-based research. In fact, we are in the midst of a new Space Age. We have a renaissance among students, who send their experiments into space, by having rockets deliver these payloads to the International Space Station for review and testing. With more than 350 such experiments to our credit, now is the time to double or triple that number because of the many ways space-based research has influenced - and will continue to influence - STEM-related projects and jobs. Reports from NASA, in addition to a call for advancing STEM education from Lockheed Martin, speak to the essence nature of this mission.
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