November 2022
View the Spanish translation of our newsletter here.
From the Director's Desk
Hello, Mid-Valley-

I hope that you all are doing well and that you’re appreciating the return of the rain as we move decidedly into fall. Please enjoy this month’s Director’s Desk staff highlight!

Meet Danielle Jarkowsky, Business and Industry Outreach and Equity Specialist.
Danielle is the newest member of the team and joins us to lead our career-connected learning portfolio. In her first few months with us, she has led micro job shadows for middle school students, taken teachers on externships to learn about local construction and manufacturing employers, and is currently developing
a suite of paid internships for Lebanon high school students in healthcare. If you’d like to help connect
your students with the world of work, Danielle knows Oregon’s Career-Connected Learning Framework like the back of her hand!
Danielle can be reached at: jarkowd@linnbenton.edu.
Thanks to all of you for your support of our work to create a culture of equitable prosperity in Linn and Benton Counties. We truly cannot do this without each and every one of you.

Sarah Whiteside
Executive Director
Visiting Colonia Paz
Written by: Chris Singer
As the MVSCH Program Coordinator, I have the opportunity to spend a lot of time traveling across both counties to meet and work with teachers and students to advance our mission of elevating and enhancing STE(A)M and CTE. Last year, I went into over 80 classrooms - both
in and out of schools - and worked with over 1400 students. Every experience has been rewarding and I learn something new with each one.

This year, many of these outreach opportunities are being made possible by our newly launched Mobile Makerspace, the Hub’s traveling STE(A)M and CTE classroom on wheels.
On Tuesday, October 18th, we took the Mobile Makerspace out to an event at Colonia Paz. Colonia Paz is the new housing community that prioritizes farmworkers in Lebanon, including disabled and retired farmworkers, that just opened its doors for residents in August this year. 
For this event, we set up in the community room and participants were given the materials to design and build a haunted house made out of cardboard and LED tealight candles. Before long, we had parents, grandparents, preschoolers, and even a middle schooler, engaged in this seasonal activity that emphasizes STE(A)M fundamentals. 

If you were able to peek into the community room during our session, you’d see some truly beautiful moments:

  • One little boy, age 4, wasn’t interested at all in building a house, but he certainly loved using the electric cardboard cutters (zip snips) and spent most of his time designing ramps and chutes for his toy cars with his grandfather. 
  • One little girl, age 6, began the evening reluctantly but then quickly became engaged in building her house with vision, imagination, and lots of out-of-the-box creative thinking. 
  • Another participant was a mother of a young baby who attended with her husband but then spent the evening carefully making her own haunted house, enjoying some “me” time.

Moments like these bring STE(A)M and CTE to life in the community for the whole family and are exactly why we do the work we do! We are excited to be back at Colonia Paz in December for another opportunity to learn together and make more wonderful memories with the community. To invite the Mobile Makerspace to your classroom or event, please fill out this Event Request Form.

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When you make a gift to the Mid-Valley STEM-CTE Hub Fund through the LBCC Foundation you help ensure that moments like those shared above, as well as the development of critical STE(A)M-CTE education in our region, including the launch of the new campus Maker and Innovation Learning Lab, will be sustainable and can continue making an impact. 

Please consider making a donation today.
STEM-CTE Hub News
Launching our Spanish Website!
We have been working all summer to provide you with an essential new resource that we’re excited to launch! As part of our commitment to champion equity and inclusion, our website is now available entirely in Spanish. You can find the Spanish site by going to ww.midvalleystem.org/es/ or by visiting www.midvalleystem.org and choosing "Spanish” from the pop-up on the home page.

Our original website is still up and running, but you may notice that it has been updated and improved to make it easier to navigate! Stop in and explore all the resources we have to offer at www.midvalleystem.org.
Significant Investment in Statewide STEM HUB Computer Science Programs Announced
October brought exciting news of a $334,736 Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Computer Science grant for the Mid-Valley STEM-CTE Hub in partnership with the Oregon Department of Education Computer Science Initiative. The Governor has released $6M in GEER funds to STEM Hubs statewide.

The initiative is focused on increasing CS education opportunities for Oregon students during the 2022-2023 school year and summer (June, July, and August) 2023. This investment will help integrate and expand CS education and professional development in our education system across grade bands (both in and out of school.) One of the many priorities is to ensure access to CS education for women, students of color, and others who are historically underrepresented in computer science.

For more information about engaging your school or program in this opportunity, please contact Chris Singer at, singerc@linnbenton.edu.
November is National Career Development Month
Speaking of career development, we are halfway through our first Healthcare Pathways Career Exploration program. We teamed up with Lebanon Community School District to expose 10 high school juniors and seniors to healthcare careers: everything from emergency care to public health and allied health. Our first event was a visit to the Lebanon Fire District to learn about EMS and other lifesaving services. Check out our Instagram page to catch a snapshot
of that experience.

National Career Development Month 2022 with Career Journeys
Hot off the press is the Career Journeys Toolkit! Bring awareness around career development and start to create a culture of career-connected learning in your classrooms
and school. This Toolkit is populated with a wide range of resources and activities to support elementary, middle, and high schools in these career development conversations. 

Navigating the uncertainty of our formative years takes courage, curiosity, and outside support.  A single conversation can spark a passion that leads to a lifetime of reward.
The Career Journeys project seeks to educate middle and high school students from
across the state of Oregon (and beyond) about in-demand career pathways through a
model of near-peer influence and story-telling. 

We invite you to have a quick scan and consider how you might incorporate Career Journey Videos and career conversations into your school’s career development activities, opportunities, and celebrations this November and throughout the year!   

Reminder of Important Dates: 

  • November 2022 is National Career Development Month 
  • November 14-18 is National Career Development Week 
  • November 16 is National Career Development Day
2021-22 Annual Report Available Now!
Did you know we just recently celebrated our 2-year anniversary as the youngest STEM hub in Oregon?

As a STEM hub, we do a lot of STEAM and CTE outreach to the communities in Linn and Benton counties. We recently sat down as a team and collected all the highlights of our STEAM and CTE-based work for our 2021-22 annual report. We are excited to share it with you!

If you'd like to see all the progress we've made over the last year, you can review
the digital version of our annual report here. If you'd like a printed copy, we have a limited quantity available. You can request a printed copy of the annual report by reaching out to our marketing specialist, Kacey Montgomery, at montgok@linnbenton.edu.
Join the MILL
The MILL makerspace is opening soon! With the steadfast help of the LBCC Facilities crew, the MILL space is almost complete! Watch this short video to see the progress we've made up to now.

Email MILL@linnbenton.edu for more information.

Want to make the MILL even better? Consider donating to the Mid-Valley STEM-CTE Hub here or make an in-kind donation. View our wishlist of items for the MILL here!
MVSCH Media
Closing the Gap

What is the importance of a good education? 

Tune in on November 14th as we talk to Dr. Ramycia McGhee, a literature professor at LBCC and an educator with Oak Creek Correctional Facility, as we find out how education and continued learning can make a difference in
a young person’s life.

You can find these episodes on our website: www.midvalleystem.org/closing-the-gap/. 
Later on in the month, we will have OSU grad Carolina Guillen (pictured on the left) on the show. Carolina immigrated to the United States from Mexico as a child. We will talk about her experience growing up in Albany and receiving her bioengineering degree at OSU.
As always, you can listen to the show on Spotify, you can also find the entire library of Closing the Gap episodes on our YouTube channel!
If you are a woman in STEM, or have a career in manufacturing or a skilled trade and would like to talk about your experience, contact Kacey Montgomery at montgok@linnbenton.edu.
Spotlighting a Partner!
Helping fuel innovative programming in the Mid-Valley region.

Special thanks to BCF for investing in the development of a pilot Computer Science/Digital Learning (CS/DL) program with the Philomath School District during the 2022-2023 school year.

Our program efforts began this summer with engagement in CSforAll’s SCRIPT Training to guide a team of leaders and educators from the Philomath School District through a series of collaborative visioning, self-assessment, and goal-setting exercises to create a district-wide STEM/CS/DL computer science education implementation plan for their students.

CS & DL efforts included a pilot project beginning this fall. To align with SCRIPT efforts, our pilot focuses on PreK-2nd grade students and will use Bee-Bots to teach computational thinking and early programming skills. We launched our pilot in October at Blodgett Elementary School with the goal of reaching every PreK-2nd grade student in the district this school year.
Lending Library News & Updates
We are excited to announce that we are piloting new Benton County pickup and drop-off locations at Corvallis-Benton Public Library branches! CBCPL has graciously offered to transport and hold STEM-CTE Hub Lending Library items at all of its branches, including Philomath, Alsea, Monroe, and Corvallis. This means that you don’t have to make it to the LBCC Benton Center before they close or wait for MVSCH programs to come to your school to have access to our amazing library!

Coming soon - 3Doodler 3D pens!

As a part of our commitment to providing schools with the tools to teach emerging technologies, we are adding 3D pens for all ages to our collection!
The 3Doodler EDU Start Learning Pack  
Grades: K-8

These 3D printing pens and their creations are not hot to touch and use low-heat, BPA-free, and non-toxic plastic, making them completely safe for kids to use. As a tactile learning toy, the 3Doodler Start inspires creativity, design, planning, building, and spatial understanding - perfect for STE(A)M learning!

With the 3Doodler EDU Learning Pack, you can equip an entire classroom with 3Doodler pens and accessories! The 3Doodler Start 12-Pen Learning Pack is ideal for a class size of 24. It includes a Teacher's Kit, four Student Kits, and a Plastics Kit with 1,200 strands.
3Doodler EDU Create+ Learning Pack 
Grades: 8+

Discover a whole new way to Create and fix! Click to extrude heated plastic which hardens rapidly, allowing you to draw in 3D, freehand, or using stencils. A fun and easy way to accomplish any project. Make art, fix things, design wearable items, build models, and decorate!

With the all-new 3Doodler EDU Learning Pack, you can equip an entire classroom with 3Doodler pens and accessories! The 3Doodler Create+ 12-Pen Learning Pack is ideal for a class size of 24. It includes a Teacher's Kit, four Students' Kits, and a Plastics Kit with 1,200 strands
Check out our Lending Library today!
Fill out the Educator Lending Library request form, and check out the rest of the MVSCH Lending Library Catalog. For more information, email Forrest Johnson.
Resources, Events, & Upcoming Opportunities
STEM/CTE Community Bulletin Board
What's happening in your school/business/organization? Send us your news items for the Community Bulletin Board in our monthly newsletter and we'll help you spread the word! We ask that submissions be regional, non-commercial, STEM/CTE germane, and be limited to one sentence and a link. Submissions are due by the third Monday of each month.
Laser Lantern Workshops
At Connected Lane County’s Laser Lantern Workshops, youth will learn to use a laser cutter to carve intricate 2D designs into lantern screens and produce their own unique lantern.
In addition to operating the laser cutter, participants will learn design skills and workflows using Procreate and Adobe Illustrator software.
This workshop is offered on two different days, each for a different school district. Please be sure to select the correct workshop upon registration.

Workshop Details:
Upcoming dates: December 2, and December 9.
Open to youth in grades 5-8.
Lunch and snacks will be provided.
Cost: $89. Scholarships are available.
ROV Building Workshop for Educators
Dec 10 at 9AM - 4PM in Newport 
Event by: Oregon Coast STEM Hub

Grade 6-12 educators will learn how to build a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) and learn how to get their students involved in building underwater robots and competing in the MATE ROV Competition. Stipend and
ROV included. Learn more
ABOUT US
Visit the Mid-Valley STEM-CTE Hub 
website to learn more About us, see a list of our Partners, and find out how YOU can get involved.

Mailing Address:
Mid-Valley STEM-CTE Hub
Linn-Benton Community College
CC-212
6500 Pacific Blvd SW
Albany, OR 97321
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