Welcome to the Iowa Million Girls Moonshot Minute! This monthly publication from the Iowa Afterschool Alliance provides dozens of STEM out-of-school time professional development opportunities and activities to strengthen the quality of programs across the state. We hope that you find these resources valuable! Learn more about the national Million Girls Moonshot movement here.

If you expect to be conducting an engineering camp or leading engineering activities for middle school youth this summer, you may be able to help with the Million Girls Moonshot (MGM) evaluation. In exchange for your assistance, we will provide $2,000 for program expenses and a $1,000 stipend for the facilitator. 

Learn more about the opportunity HERE. Apply HERE by April 15, 2022!

Thursday, March 24, 2022 from 1:30 p.m. CST

Join Rio Salado College as they host a webinar on "Women in STEM Careers" to celebrate Women's History Month. The STEM-focused (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) event will feature keynote speakers Nichole Neal and Dr. Tara Nkrumah. 

Friday, April 1, 2022 at 8 a.m. CST

Life is messy and your child doesn’t always deal with clear-cut problems. Join Technovation to learn about the Engineering Design Process and how this framework can help anybody approach all sorts of complex problems both within STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and out. In this session, we will focus on the different steps of the Engineering Design Process, including iteration and developing resistance to failure in STEM.

Wednesday, April 20, 2022 1 p.m. CST

Wednesdays April 27th, May 11 and 25th from 9-10:30 a.m. CST

Tuesdays April 26th, May 10 and 14th from 8-9:30 a.m. CST

Are you ready to bring meaningful STEM learning into your program? This module offers educators who are new to facilitating STEM the opportunity to build supportive relationships with other educators while exploring the principles of STEM learning. This module combines an introduction to STEM facilitation with the skill of Asking Purposeful Questions.

Ready to train volunteers and role models in your Network, school, or afterschool program? Complete the registration form to gain access to the Role Models Matter training developed by Techbridge Girls.

Toolkit: Managing American Spaces Resource Toolkit - For Women’s History Month, this Resource Toolkit contains lesson plans, discussion guides, posters, social media, and movies about the struggle for women’s equality in the United States, as well as, women’s rights globally.

Toolkit: Math Equity Toolkit - This tool kit layers professional development into “Strides” that educators can take along a path to equitable education. Topics include Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction and Creating Conditions to Thrive.

Professional Development Guide: The National Center for Quality Afterschool - Math in Afterschool - The National Partnership for Quality Afterschool Learning developed professional development guides for four content areas of the toolkit: literacy, math, technology, and the arts.

Activity Toolkit: Growing Math - Provides ready-to-roll-out lessons and games combining math, agricultural science and Indigenous history and culture that can be easily used in classrooms, via hybrid models or through distance learning. The project will provide resources, curriculum, training and tech support to teachers and students in Grades 3-8 at schools in six states: Arizona, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon and South Dakota. For schools in the region, all participation and resources are supported through USDA funds.

The below assets are free profile videos and photos of IF/THEN Ambassadors for Women's History Month. These can be used in marketing, presentations, social media, embedded on websites, during conferences, and so much more. Featured IF/THEN Ambassadors:

Website: Math Communities - Students, parents, and educators coming together to play with math! Math Communities creates a virtual community that provides free access to joyful collaborative activities designed by professional mathematicians and math educators for K-12 students, educators, and families. There are lots of ways to communicate with other folks interested in math.

Toolkit: Brokering Youth Pathways: A Toolkit for Connecting Youth to Future Opportunity - This toolkit from Hive Research Network shares ways in which various out-of-school educators and professionals have approached the challenge of brokering. We provide a framework, practice briefs and reports that focus on a particular issue or challenge and provide concrete examples, as well as illustrate how our partners worked through designing new brokering routines in partnership with our research team.

The Mizzen By Mott app delivers inspiring and engaging activities that spark learning in young people. Supported by the Mott Foundation, Mizzen is available at no cost to afterschool professionals! Encourage partners to download the Mizzen By Mott app to access STEM activities at your finger-touch! You’ll find it in Mizzen here.