San Antonio Scores $1.5 Million STEM Grant

Thanks to a $1.5 million National Science Foundation grant, minority students at Alamo Colleges in San Antonio will get the help they need to excel in science, technology, engineering and math fields beginning in 2014.

As mySA.com reported, just last month, Alamo Colleges announced that St. Phillip's College will head-up the implementation of the three-year grant, called the CIMA Alliance, which will benefit all five area community colleges. 

Cima means summit in Spanish. For a city rich with Hispanic culture and traditions, the name couldn't be more appropriate. 

Even more impressive, the grant was one of only two funded by the science foundation's Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation Bridge to Baccalaureate Alliances program. 

CIMA hopes to involve 900 misrepresented minority STEM majors in activities such as undergraduate research and peer and faculty mentorship. The grant also aims to up minority STEM enrollment by 10 percent and boost transfers to STEM majors at four-year schools by 20 percent. 

The grant will enable the district to create STEM study centers at three campuses as well as fund tutoring efforts, STEM student clubs and professional development for faculty, among other activities. 

Read the entire mySA report here.

STEM Schools the Topic of New Town Hall Series!

STEMconnector and Next Steps Institute are joining forces to host three Virtual Town Halls this summer on the topic of STEM schools. The online webinars will serve as pre-conference workshops in advance of the Next Steps for STEM Schools Conference in Charleston, SC on Sept. 30-Oct. 2. 

Revolving around STEM schools, each Town Hall will focus on engaging key stakeholders in supporting STEM schools and identifying resources and best practices. The three-webinar series will kick off tomorrow, July 9, at 5 p.m. ET with, "Leveraging Federal and State Resources to Support STEM Schools." 

The following speakers will offer their unique institutional perspectives on the topic:

• Danielle Carnival, Ph.D., Senior Advisor - White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)
• Jim Colby, Division of Human Resource Development, Education and Human Resources Directorate - National Science Foundation
• Jeff Weld, PhD., Executive Director - Iowa's Governor's STEM Advisory Council
• Tom Peters, Ed.D., Executive Director - South Carolina Coalition for Math and Science
• April M. McCrae, Education Associate, Science Assessment/STEM Coordinator - Delaware Department of Education

You can join in on the Town Hall by registering here. You can also keep up with the action by joining in on the Twitter Chat using #NS4STEM.

The second Town Hall of the series, "Engaging Industry - Promising Models of Corporate Engagement in STEM Schools," will be held on July 30. Speakers at this webinar will discuss promising practices of industry engagement in STEM school support. "Field Report: STEM Schools in Action," will wrap up the Town Hall series on August 20 and offer perspective from STEM school supporters, administrators and teachers.

Students: Apply for the Polar Research Experience!

Good news if you're currently a 10th or 11th grader: the National Science Foundation (NSF) is currently accepting applications from 10th and 11th grade students with a strong interest in the natural sciences and a passion for learning to participate in the 2013 Joint Science Education Project (JSEP).  JSEP is a unique summer research project in - are you ready for this? - Greenland! The program has two parts: The Kangerlussauq Science Field School, sponsored by the Government of Greenland; and the US-led Science Education Week, sponsored by the NSF.

So, what happens if you're selected? This summer, all of the selected US high school students will join their peers from Denmark and Greenland to spend three weeks conducting field science in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland and visiting a research station on the Greenland ice sheet. Students will work with Arctic scientists along with their peers on research projects in a variety of fields including biology, geology, climatology, chemistry and engineering.

This program is sponsored by the NSF's Office of Polar Programs and is in collaboration with the Joint Committee. Each year, JSEP is led and supported by one of the Albert Einstein Distinguished Fellows. Leading the 2013 JSEP experience is Lynn Foshee Reed (NSF, '12-'13).

Students have until February 15, 2013 to submit their applications. The application and more information can be found at www.arcus.org/jsep. Spread the word and apply today!

JSEP 2012

STEM Represented in 2012 MacArthur Fellows

Here's to a small victory in science education! Every year, the MacArthur Foundation makes a $500,000 investment in the future by handing out money to people whose work shows promise. The 2012 fellows were just announced and on this year's roster are a plethora of STEM representatives including a mathematician, a geriatrician, an optical physicist and astronomer, a neurobiologist, a medical microbiologist, a geochemist, a marine ecologist, a computer scientist and a bioengineer. Two of the winners were also named one of PopSci's Brilliant 10: Maria Chudnovsky and Melody Swartz. 

Matematician Maria ChudnovskyMaria Chudnovsky investigates the fundamental principles of graph theory. Although her research is highly abstract, Chudnovsky is laying the conceptual foundation s for deepening connections between graph theory and its relationship to other branches of mathematics, such as linear programming and geometry. Chudnovsky is an associate professor for the department of industrial engineering and operations research at Columbia University. 

Bioengineer Melody Swartz

Melody Swartz applies principles and methods from engineering and physiology to discover the mechanisms controlling the movement of biological fluids through tissue and the implications for health. She uses a large toolbox of concepts and methods from biophysics, cell culture, molecular genetics, engineering and immunology  Swartz is a professor at the Institute of Bioengineering in Lausanne, Switzerland.

To check out all of the 2012 MacArthur fellows, click here!

Teacher (and Teachers-to-be) Scholarship Alert

For Teachers-to-be:


AFCEA Teacher Scholarship


Amount: 50 Scholarships of $5000 each


Who is this for? Undergraduates, graduates and anyone pursuing the credentials to join the STEM teaching community in the U.S middle or secondary schools.


For Teachers:


STEM Teacher Scholarship


Amount: $5000


Who is this for? future teacher attending a Virginia college or university in honor of The Honorable John W. Warner, former United States Senator. 


Additional Teacher Scholarship - $2500


Robert Noyce Scholarship Program

Amount: Not Specified


Who is this for? STEM majors and professionals looking for a career change into K-12 Math and Science Educators

Apply by: March 26, 2012