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STEM Competitions
Future City Competition Announces Theme for 2019-20: Clean Water: Tap Into Tomorrow (DiscoverE)
We turn on the faucet and clean water flows. Most of us don't give it much thought. But for civil engineers, urban planners, developers, and other professionals, maintaining a reliable water supply takes expertise, planning and constant vigilance. A water-resilient city must be prepared to address a wide range of risks, including drought, flooding, population change, natural and manmade disasters and economic recession. With this pressing issue top of mind, the Future City Competition, now in its 28th year, announces Clean Water: Tap Into Tomorrow, the 2019-20 theme for its award-winning, project based learning experience for middle schoolers.
When A Brand Collaboration Actually Has Synergy: Disney And FIRST Robotics (Forbes)
 FIRST is the parent organization of four different robotics competitions, FIRST LEGO League Jr, FIRST LEGO League, FIRST Tech Challenge, and the FIRST Robotics Competition. Every year there is some commonality between the four competitions in terms of the theme and the design challenge. Every year there is some commonality between the four competitions in terms of the theme and the design challenge. 
K-12 Education
CME Group Foundation Awards Nearly $1 Million in Grants to Reduce Computer Science Deserts (CME Group)
CME Group Foundation will award more than $900,000 in new grants to Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and local nonprofits to support in-school and after-school computer science programs with the goal of reducing "computer science deserts" in Chicago. Grants are being allocated for summer and after-school programs for K-12 students in Chicago, based on the results of a first-ever study funded by the Foundation to identify neighborhoods in most need of computer science programs. Northwestern University's Office of Community and Education Partnerships conducted the research, which identified Chicago neighborhoods that did not have any computer science programming open to all neighborhood students.
NSTA and Corteva Agriscience Collaborate to Bring New Food and Agriculture Educational Resources to Teachers (NSTA)
The National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) and Corteva Agriscience have collaborated to bring new, science-based lesson plans and resources to elementary teachers nationwide. A series of 10 teacher reviewed lesson plans exploring food and agricultural themes are now available at https://www.nsta.org/corteva. From designing healthy ice pops to learning about plants' growth needs, each lesson plan is primed to inspire and excite students in the classroom.
Amazon to fund robotics and computer science courses in more high schools (Amazon)
 A new partnership between Amazon and Metro Nashville Public Schools will bring computer science courses and robotics to 24 schools focused on students from underserved and underrepresented communities as part of the Amazon Future Engineer program. Amazon is providing 21 elementary, middle, and high schools with robotics programming, which includes funding to launch FIRST robotics programs along with teacher professional development, $10,000 to expand access to computer science education at each school, which could include field trips, hardware, and technology upgrades, and access to a tour of an Amazon robotics fulfillment center
STEM Teachers Could Get Up to $20K in College Loan Aid (NJ Spotlight)
Senate passes legislation to give STEM educators a hand with paying off existing student loans or help funding advanced degrees. State lawmakers want to provide a new incentive for New Jersey's public-school STEM teachers by offering to help them pay off college loans. Under legislation that cleared the full Senate on Sept. 12, teachers of STEM ho are working in public schools in New Jersey could get up to $20,000 in college-loan assistance in return for teaching in the classroom for at least four years.
Diversity in STEM
$10M Pitt grant to address enrollment gap in STEM fields (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Addressing the STEM enrollment and success gap, and promoting a more robust pipeline in STEM for various underrepresented groups, are reasons why NSF announced a $10 million grant to a team of University of Pittsburgh researchers and an outside group. The Pitt researchers are part of the university's Broadening Equity in Stem (BE STEM) Center, located in the Kenneth Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. It and an organization called the STEM Learning Ecosystem Community of Practice (SLECoP) have been chosen to create a network of pre-college programs with accreditation standards, officials said.
STEMinista program encourages girls to get involved with STEM (WNYT)
Passion for STEM is taking flight inside the UAlbany drone lab where a group of fourth graders is on track to defy the odds. The STEMinista program is in its first year in the Albany City Schools and consists of two girls from every elementary school in the district. Sara McGraw heads up the STEMinistas and is the supervisor of the Albany City School’s math, science, and STEM departments. She says studies show most girls lose interest in STEM by the age of 11. STEMinistas hopes to change that.
Viewpoints
Mitchell Baker (Chairwoman and Co-Founder of Mozilla): How STEM Education Must Evolve (Scientific American)
Over the past 40 years, the number of graduate students studying STEM has more than doubled to almost 700,000. Yet over that same time period, relatively little has been done to educate those students about the political, psychological, economic, social and ethical dimensions of their work. Yesterday’s STEM curriculum produced an environment where tech platforms and products were developed in isolation from the broader effects they had on society. We need to update the syllabus so society gains a wider understanding of both the good and bad that come with massively accelerated technological development.
Tennessee
Introduce Students to STEM Careers with Learning Blade (The Tennessee STEM Innovation Network)
 Start the school year right by exposing your students to high-demand STEM and Computer Science careers! TSIN is pleased to provide Learning Blade's online STEM career awareness platform for all middle schools in the state. The platform contains 200+ hours of interactive STEM and Computer Science activities to show your students how these careers and technologies solve human-centered problems. Students can select from 400 online, engaging lessons, while educators have access to lesson plans for hands-on projects. |
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MWM Leaders To Learn From: Sonar Thekdi- VP of Engineering Business Operations, IoT Cisco Systems
 "When I was a 12-year-old girl growing up in a middle-class family in India, I could not have imagined my future in my wildest dreams. As the youngest of six girls, living with my single mom (my dad passed away when I was two and a half years old), I was just trying to be an obedient daughter, a great student and a cautious young woman. The world around me seemed to be full of hardships, and I thought that all I had to do was overcome the daily challenges and take care of myself, and at most, my mom. My only dream was to become an 'engineer' because my dad (who I didn't even remember) was one and I wanted to carry forward his legacy. While I did become an engineer, I am proud of how I took charge of my career, listened to my gut and charted an unconventional path."
Thanks to everyone who joined us for #BeyondTheBuzzChat!
 Thank you to everyone who joined Million Women Mentors last week for #BeyondTheBuzzChat as we headed back to school! We absolutely love how informative and interactive these Twitter Chats have become and how everyone who participates shares so many great resources! Click the link to get caught up, and let us know @MillionWMentors what you'd like our next topic to be!
Largest middle and high school computer security competition ever starts September 27
 "When I was a 12-year-old girl growing up in a middle-class family in India, I could not have imagined my future in my wildest dreams. As the youngest of six girls, living with my single mom (my dad passed away when I was two and a half years old), I was just trying to be an obedient daughter, a great student and a cautious young woman. The world around me seemed to be full of hardships, and I thought that all I had to do was overcome the daily challenges and take care of myself, and at most, my mom. My only dream was to become an 'engineer' because my dad (who I didn't even remember) was one and I wanted to carry forward his legacy. While I did become an engineer, I am proud of how I took charge of my career, listened to my gut and charted an unconventional path."
Million Women Mentors September Newsletter
 September's MWM Newsletter features important updates on 2019 Be Counted Campaign, updates from our partners at MENTOR, Alliant Energy, the Manufacturing Institute's STEP Women's Initiative, and REC Foundation's 1st Annual Girl Powered Gala, ACORD's Next Generation of Insurance Talent Webinar, and big news coming from MWM CT & MWM TX! |
