STEMdaily
Thursday, September 26, 2019
Day of Design
Students Innovate Grocery Shopping Experience for 2019 National Day of Design
In anticipation of National STEM/STEAM Day (November 8, 2019), STEMconnector's National Day of Design returns to bring students of all grade levels a mission that asks them to find new innovative solutions to personalize the grocery shopping experience. Sponsored by Walmart, the 2019 National Day of Design Mission, Healthy Helpers: Personalizing the Shopping Experience for a Healthier You, provides an opportunity for students in grades K-12 to acquire deep understanding about a challenge that impacts their daily lives and their communities while using interdisciplinary skills in various sciences, English, technology, and the fundamentals of engineering to design a new invention that will personalize the grocery shopping experience for those with dietary restrictions, busy schedules, and more. Over 50,000 students across the country have participated in previous National Days of Design.

U.S. Cellular Donates to JASON Learning, Benefitting Nearly Half a Million Students (U.S. Cellular)
U.S. Cellular has announced a renewal of its relationship with the nonprofit JASON Learning, an education-focused organization with headquarters based in Virginia. In its continued commitment to providing access to STEM, U.S. Cellular donated $300,000 to support JASON Learning's curriculum and initiatives. Last year, U.S. Cellular worked with JASON Learning to create a custom STEM-focused design thinking challenge called “Connected Storm Sanctuary,” to inspire students to create a connected space for communities facing natural disasters. After introducing the challenge to students in Milwaukee and Tulsa, Okla., in 2018, the company is now expanding it to Cedar Rapids, Iowa and Chicago. U.S. Cellular's contribution has the potential to offer high-quality STEM curricula to nearly 500,000 students for the 2019-2020 school year.

Diversity in STEM
10 Game-Changing Hispanic Scientists You Didn't Learn About In School (Mentalfloss)
September is #HispanicHeritageMonth, and many of the greatest Hispanic scientists are people you never learned about in school. From groundbreaking biologists and physicists to innovators in the fields of medicine, botany, and environmental studies, here are 10 game-changing Hispanic scientists you should know about. In 1993, astronaut Ellen Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman to go to space. She first served on a nine-day mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery, where she and a team of astronauts studied the Earth’s ozone layer, then returned to space three more times, spending nearly 1000 hours in orbit....

This new Barbie doll wants girls to explore STEM career paths (Ladders)
Barbie's on a new mission - aiming to attract girls to STEM career paths. Mattel's Barbie teamed up with airline Virgin Atlantic to create three special edition dolls part of Barbie's Dream Gap Project, with the new dolls encouraging young girls to consider careers in aviation and other careers. The dolls feature real Virgin Atlantic uniforms and include dolls resembling a pilot, an engineer, and a cabin crew member doll.

K-12 Education
Learning Blade helps prepare Yellow Creek students for trip (Middlesboro Daily News)
With seventh graders at Yellow Creek Elementary School looking ahead to a Sept. 26 Toyota trip, Gear Up academic interventionist Brandy Bauer wanted to prepare her students for what they will see at the car manufacturing plant in Georgetown. Bauer, working with college and career navigators Alexis Phelps and Sabrina Cross and academic interventionist Chelsea Evans, was able to simulate the car creation process through the Learning Blade program sponsored by Gear Up SOAR.

Doing the Math: Building a Foundation of Joyful and Authentic Math (100Kin10)
Read our new report "Doing the Math: Building a foundation of joyful and authentic math learning for all students". The report offers a fresh analysis of the issues surrounding foundational math - including a focus on the highest-leverage places for change - and spotlights models and immediate actions that offer clear strategies for equipping elementary teachers to enable authentic and joyful math learning for all students.

Higher Education
AWS Educate broadens its partnership with Virginia schools (Washington Business Journal)
Following this summer's unveiling of two four-year degree programs centered on cloud computing, Amazon Web Services upped the ante Friday, extending its curriculum to select universities, community colleges and even four K-12 school districts in the commonwealth. For the cloud service giant - a subsidiary of Amazon.com Inc. - the expansion doubles down on its investment in workforce development in Virginia, which is already home to the company's impending HQ2 headquarters in Arlington and an already substantial federal cloud business in Herndon.

Billionaire Paying College Grads' Student Loan Debt Will Also Cover Their Parents' Debt (People)
Robert F. Smith, the billionaire who announced to great surprise that he would be paying off the student-loan debt for each student of Morehouse College's 2019 class, had one more surprise up his sleeve. Morehouse - a private and historically black men's college in Atlanta - announced in a statement posted to their website on Friday that Smith had followed through on his promise by donating $34 million to the Morehouse College Student Success Program.

Dear Students of STEM, I Challenge You to Vote! (Union of Concerned Scientists)
...did students vote more in 2004 than in prior years? Yes, they did; however, when voter turnout data was analyzed across student identified majors, social scientists found students studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) had the lowest turnout rates. This was also the case in 2012, 2016, and 2018 elections. Why do STEM students continue to vote at low rates? The short answer is that we’re not certain.

Stay Connected

STEMconnector STEM Blog Facebook Twitter You Tube LinkedIn Google+

The Regeneron Science Talent Search 2020 Application is now open! (Society for Science & the Public)
The Regeneron Science Talent Search (Regeneron STS) is one of the oldest science competitions for high school seniors and provides an important forum for original research that is recognized and reviewed by a national jury of professional scientists. Alumni have made extraordinary contributions to science and have earned many of the world’s most distinguished science and math honors, including thirteen Nobel Prizes. Each year, Regeneron STS scholars and finalists compete for $3.1 million in awards. The deadline to apply is November 13, 2019 at 8pm ET.

Members Corner: STEMconnector's New Research Explores STEM Work-Based Learning in Postsecondary Settings
STEMconnector’s newest white paper, STEM Work-Based Learning in Postsecondary Settings: A guide for employers, discusses how work-based learning bolsters recent graduates’ preparedness for the STEM workforce and provides employers with earlier access to STEM talent. One way to address these aspects of the STEM talent crisis is through work-based learning, a practice that benefits students and their prospective employers. The white paper provides employers with information they can use to create work-based learning programs or improve upon existing ones. This is a members only resource that can be accessed through the member portal on the STEMconnector website.

TCS goIT Celebrates 10-Year Anniversary with New Micro Bit, GIS Technology Pathways and Digital Innovation Lab
TCS announced the expansion of its flagship STEM and Computer Science (CS) education program, goIT, with the addition of new technology pathways in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Micro Bit, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and a first-of-its-kind Digital Innovation Lab. Through goIT, students learn design thinking, digital technologies and the agile methodology to develop and prototype solutions that improve their own communities or support the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. With a proven curriculum since its inception in 2009 at TCS Seven Hills Park in Cincinnati, Ohio, goIT has empowered more than 25,000 students in 77 North American cities.