Girls around the world have gazed into the night sky wondering what's out there and dreaming of what they can achieve. Frito-Lay Variety Packs is committed to fueling those dreams of exploration, discovery and achievement by teaming up with actress and science-fiction star Sonequa Martin-Green for the return of its Back-to-School Blast Off program. This year, the iconic snack brand also partnered with STEM Next's Million Girls Moonshot, an initiative that seeks to engage one million more girls in STEM learning opportunities through afterschool and summer programs by 2025. The snack brand will donate $100,000 to further the program's mission and send the organization's inaugural Flight Crew of aspiring space explorers to Space Camp®. 

At Concourse Village Elementary School in the Bronx, solving math problems doesn’t always start with diving into the numbers. Here, students focus on the words first, reading the problem out loud with the teacher, identifying common words and phrases, and discussing the broader narrative hidden within the problem. When facing a complex math task, discussing strategies with peers and posing questions before attempting to solve it allows students to verbalize their thinking and test out theories—and develops the content-specific vocabulary to do so. “As students move through the grades, vocabulary knowledge plays an increasingly important role in the learning experience,” write educators Miranda L. Sigmon, Kavin Ming, and Daniel Herring, in Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK-12, a journal by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.