Reaching underrepresented populations with STEM opportunities is what US2020 is all about. Their goal to match one million students with STEM mentors by 2020 requires dedicated STEM professionals and corporate partners. They have reason to be excited about both. They’ve just announced the winners of the 2015 STEM Mentoring awards and have added and expanded mentoring opportunities.
Leaders from public, private, and social sectors gathered at the White House today to discuss successful strategies in STEM at the 2015 STEM Mentoring Awards. We recently discussed the importance of STEM Mentorship, and this year’s winners emphasize how well it can work.
As part of a national competition, winners were honored in the categories of Most Innovative Hands-On Project (Chicago Student Invention Convention and University City Science Center FirstHand), Excellence in Volunteer Experience (Iridescent and We Teach Science) and Excellence in Corporate Culture (IBM and NetApp). These organizations were selected from more than 80, which represented 30 different cities and 13 states.
Successful themes in these winning strategies include providing students with increased exposure to science and engineering topics, the support of a student’s own interests, and interaction with scientists or engineers (in person or remotely). I encourage you to learn more about how these organizations are making it easier and more effective to connect professionals with students and what opportunities are available.
In a continuing push to provide more opportunities, US2020 is now partnering with Alcoa Foundation and offering new opportunities with founding co-investor, Raytheon. Alcoa Foundation will be primarily focused on developing online STEM mentor training to serve 20,000 students and STEM professionals, with a specific goal of reaching 2,500 underrepresented students in the Greater Los Angeles area, which has seen a sharp rise in demand for STEM professionals. The online program will be universal, and will equip mentors to work effectively with underrepresented youth.
Raytheon’s partnership will now offer more opportunities for military and veterans’ children. The goal of the expanded partnership is to develop a general framework and pilot program to address the specific challenges in military families.
These new and expanded opportunities and existing programs are making it easier than ever for students to learn about and get experience in STEM disciplines. They make it easier than ever for STEM professionals to mentor these children as well. With more organizations getting involved and new, remote mentoring opportunities available, the ability to excite the next generation is closer than you may realize.
Just one example of the exciting ways organizations are reaching out to engage more students in STEM is given in the video below, which describes Iridescent Learning’s Curiosity Machine.
Image: FirstHandPhilly.org
