The Beaker - November 2021

November 6, 2021 | Issue 21-11

Upcoming Events

November 25 - Thanksgiving Holiday

December 1 - Fair Registration Deadline

December 31 - $2,000 Nitro Scholarship Sweepstakes Deadline

January 26 - Elk Grove Regional Scholarship Foundation Deadline

The 2022 Sacramento Regional STEM Fair will be here sooner than you think!

Support STEM Education efforts in your community by sponsoring the Foundation. The NorCal STEM Education Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, so your donations are tax-deductible! All proceeds go toward our mission to inspire and engage students to become interested in pursuing scientific, technological, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) degrees and careers.

Donate via our PayPal here, or you can mail a check to:

NorCal STEM Education Foundation

455 Capitol Mall, Suite 500

Sacramento, CA 95814

For more information about sponsoring the Foundation, go to our website.

Hey you! Do you want to be a Judge?

If you're an adult who is in possession of a Bachelor's Degree, at minimum, and is interested in becoming a judge for the 2022 Sacramento Regional STEM Fair, it's easier than you think! If you don't fall under one of the following then we'd love for you to join us:

To avoid conflicts of interest, the Sacramento Regional STEM Fair does not allow the following (perhaps otherwise well-qualified) people to serve as judges:

6th-12th grade school teachers, site administrators of schools with participants, staff, or board members.
Parents of or professional mentors of any student participants.
Anyone else whose relationship with any STEM fair participant could pose a conflict of interest such as Family, neighbor, or corporate relationships are often too complex for NSEF to enumerate all the cases where you as a judge may find yourself scheduled to evaluate a project whose student(s) you know personally or professionally. If you can anticipate such conflicts before the day of the event ("my company donated resources to four chemistry projects," for example), please contact the fair coordinator to transfer duties to a volunteer capacity.

Please sign up here!

Reminder for all students:

Now is the time to do some background research, design your experiment, and register your project. Do not start your experimentation yet! The deadline to register for the 2022 Sacramento Regional STEM Fair is December 1, 2021, at 11:59 p.m.

Our SRC needs time to examine ALL registrations and approve them for safety and protocol content BEFORE you can perform your experimentation. The SRC is comprised of teachers, scientists, engineers, and various other specialties, and is dedicated to following the guidelines set by the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) to guarantee the safety of the next generation of Scientists and Engineers, like you! We recommend submitting your registration early to ensure that any discrepancies within your registration are fixed before the deadline.

Student Scholarships

Lamber-Goodnow Injury Law Team Education Scholarships

There are 8 different Lamber-Goodnow Scholarships available.

DEADLINE:

December 1, 2021

HOW TO APPLY:

Meet one of the following criteria requirements:

Enrolled at an accredited high school college or university.
Must have a minimum GPA of 2.8.
Submit a 500- to 750-word essay to [email protected] by or on December 1, each year.
Tell us how you are driven to innovate, how you plan to influence progress on any level in any space or how you have already affected positive change with creative thinking.
Essay submission must be received by December 1, each year.

Winners also get a free, one-hour consult with a college admissions counseling firm.

Fill out the applications on the Lamber Goodnow Personal Injury Lawyers Website here.

National Space Club Scholarship

DEADLINE: December 3, 2021

HOW TO APPLY:

Students must intend to pursue a career in the Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM) fields, be academically strong, and excel in public speaking. This is open to seniors in High School through graduate students studying at an accredited.

Visit their website here to get a chance at a $10,000 scholarship.

Teachers! Does your class need help figuring out exactly how to register for the STEM Fair? We're available! Contact us at [email protected] for details and to schedule a presentation!

Support STEM Education while you Sshop!

Shop on Amazon! Make a difference while you shop online! Shop for gifts, school supplies, and more on Amazon to generate donations for the Sacramento Regional Science And Engineering Fair Foundation (dba NorCal STEM Education Foundation).

All you need to do is register with Amazon Smile here, then shop as you normally would, but from Smile.Amazon.com, Amazon can even auto-direct you there once you sign up! The same shopping experience, same prices, but with the added benefit of Amazon's support of the Foundation.

Science Spotlight

Our Brains Have a "Fingerprint," Too!

Enrico Amico, a scientist and SNSF Ambizione Fellow at EPFL's Medical Image Processing Laboratory and the EPFL Center for Neuroprosthetics, studies brains. He learned recently that every one of us has a brain "fingerprint" and that this fingerprint changes over time. You can detect a brain fingerprint in just 1 minute and 40 seconds. All they need to know are in the graphs that come after the MRIs what are known as the "functional brain connectomes."

This is just the beginning of many possibilities.

The next step will be to compare the brain fingerprints of healthy patients with those suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

This technique can be used in patients affected by autism, or stroke, or even in subjects with drug addictions.