Hello friends and partners-

This month, I’d like to extend an invitation to join our work at the leadership level. We are recruiting partners from business/industry, government, education, non-profit organizations, and community members (students, parents, retirees) who are champions of equity in STEM & CTE to serve a two-year term at our leadership table or on an action team. More information is provided in the application links or you can reach out to me directly to discuss in more detail and answer any questions @ whitess@linnbenton.edu. We seek leaders and advisors from a diversity of ages, races, identities, geographies, genders, and experiences to serve. Please consider bringing your unique expertise and perspective to enrich our work as we build this STEM and CTE ecosystem for Linn and Benton Counties!

Otherwise, we wish you a terrific start to your November. If you’re like me, that includes as many good books as possible. Speaking of good reads, if you’re looking for some recommendations of great books featuring girls and women in STEM, we’ve got a terrific collection in our Lending Library that we recently received as a generous donation from our partners with the local chapter of the American Association of University Women. Thanks, AAUW! 

Sarah Whiteside, Director

Mid-Valley STEM-CTE Hub

Computer Science and Digital Literacy are critical to create the problem solvers of the future. It could be argued that CS/DL will be present in all careers in the very near future. We want Oregon graduates to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to thrive in their career paths, and we want to support educators in their abilities to connect with their students and learn how to apply their learning.  

For the 2021-2023 biennium, the Mid-Valley STEM-CTE Hub, in partnership with the Oregon STEM Hub Network, is working to:

Our hope is to increase the number of Oregon graduates who can be equipped for the jobs of the future AND create a strong CS ecosystem that one day ensures that every Oregon student has access to CS before graduating regardless of where they live or their demographic background.

To do this, we need your help. Our initial work in this area is to complete an assessment of of our region, identifying where districts and communities are in terms of expanding access to CS opportunities. Our assessment will survey and convene administrators, teachers, and out of school/informal providers to capture the CS landscape across the state of Oregon. In order to address the equity gap, and to solve the program of access to CS, we need to better understand where we are collectively and individually starting from. With this information, we will create statewide and community driven initiatives.

Please join us and take part in this work by completing our survey. For questions, please feel free to contact Chris Singer, Mid-Valley STEM-CTE Hub Program Coordinator.

In October we launched season 2 of our podcast Closing the Gap. Closing the Gap is an audio-only podcast that highlights women and gender minorities that are working in STEM, skilled trades, manufacturing, and typically male-dominated career fields.

Episode 1 kicked off the season with a bang. We partnered with a West Albany High School student, Tori Thorp, who is studying journalism. Together we interviewed bicycle mechanic and business owner, Cassie Hidalgo of Gladys Bikes. You can listen to it here: https://www.midvalleystem.org/closing-the-gap/

For those of you that prefer to listen on the go, you can also find Closing the Gap on Spotify. 

If you would like to be a guest speaker on Closing the Gap, reach out to Kacey at montgok@linnbenton.edu. We’d love to hear your story!

Our Educator Lending library is officially open! 

This month’s featured item is for the electrical engineers of the future: Snap Circuits Junior. Elenco's Snap Circuits makes learning electronics easy and fun! Electrical components provide hands-on experience designing and building models of working electrical circuits. Just follow the colorful pictures in the manual and build exciting projects such as FM radios, digital voice, recorders, AM radios, burglar alarms, doorbells, and much more. Check out our Halloween video of the Snap Circuits UFO! Request one or all 10 Snap Circuits Jr. sets for your class with this form.

In addition to all of the great STEM activities and materials, the Lending Library is building a collection of excellent STEM and CTE-related books. Thanks to a generous donation from the American Association of University Women, the lending library now has a collection of over 25 books featuring girls and women in STEM. The collection spans all ages and features graphic novels like the Girls Who Code series, Jessica Holms’ novel The Fourteenth Goldfish, picture books and early readers, guide books, memoirs, activity books, biographies, and so much more. Check out our entire STEM Books collection here!

From fighting disease to exploring outer space, from creating your favorite movies to powering the device you're reading this on, computer science is everywhere! Help students discover the connections to CS in their lives during this year’s Hour of Code from December 6–12, 2021.

Whether you’re teaching in person or continuing remote learning, there’s an Hour of Code activity for you! Code.org How-To Guides will show you how to adapt for in-person, virtual, or no-tech options for students with limited internet access.

You don’t have to be an educator in order to host an Hour of Code at home, with a classroom, or with your company. You don’t have to be an engineer in order to volunteer 

Contact Chris Singer, Mid-Valley STEM-CTE Hub Program Coordinator, if you'd like to team up on an event.

Check out the video above for a quick look at what we've been up to. If you want a more in-depth look at our past year, please check out our Annual Report.