August 2011
PIPELINE NEWS
On August 26, 2011, Foundation Board Member Wanda Gass won the Tech Titan Community Hero Award from
the Metroplex Technology Business Council.Wanda, a TI Fellow and DSP architect with
Texas Instruments, was instrumental in getting a pilot project off the ground in
Dallas and Plan schools to teach physics teachers about gender equity in their classrooms.
Congratulations, Wanda!
On August 19, 2011, NAPE CEO Mimi Lufkin was the keynote speaker at this year's
Rockwell Collins Engineering Experiences 2011 Kick-Off Breakfast in Cedar Rapids,
IA. View PowerPoint Presentation
On August 16, 2011, the NAPE Education Foundation and Illinois School District U-46
announced their collaboration in securing $50,000 as part of the Innovation Generation
grant program from the Motorola Solutions Foundation.
On August 12, 2011, the National Science Foundation awarded $885,692 to the NAPE
Education Foundation in support the "Educators' Equity in STEM Academy," whose goal
is to increase the recruitment, academic performance, and program completion of
more women and underrepresented students in select STEM courses and programs.
On August 10, 2011, the Texas Instruments Foundation announced that it awarded $413,000
to the NAPE Education Foundation to manage and expand the impact of the highly successful
High-Tech High Heels (HTHH) program.
NEWS FROM WASHINGTON
House Resolution on Science Accountability Introduced
Reps. Judy Biggert (R-IL) and Rush Holt (D-NJ), introduced a bi-partisan House resolution
(H.
Res. 378) calling for "strong consideration" of the role of science achievement
in the ESEA/NCLB school accountability system.
The STEM Ed Coalition is asking citizens to send letters encouraging representatives
in the House to co-sponsor the Resolution. Learn More
PUBLICATIONS
"Highly Abstract" Math Curriculum Taught on High Schools Not Preparing Students
for Real World
Sol Garfunkel and Mumford, New York Time, Summary by ACTE
Mathematicians Garfunkel and Mumford write that there is an assumption that there
is a single established body of mathematical skills that everyone needs to know
to be prepared for 21st-century careers. This assumption is wrong. The truth is
that different sets of math skills are useful for different careers. What we need
is quantitative literacy, the ability to make quantitative connections whenever
life requires and mathematical modeling, the ability to move practically between
everyday problems and mathematical formulations.
Read More
At This Girls' Camp, Crafts Take a Drill
Mokoto Rich, New York Times
Forget tie-dyed shirts, lanyards and water games. At summer camp this year, Nautika
Kotero, 13, learned to use a drill press, solder electrical wires and build a lamp.
Read More
Program Between Maryland Schools, Businesses Offers Internships to Math, Science
Students
Allison Bourg, The Daily Journal
Professional researcher Andrew Murphy can hardly contain himself when talking about
the team of employees he has working for him this summer. He launched into a vivid
description of the research his group is doing - on variable star astronomy - which
he hopes will land Keystone in a prestigious scientific journal. "I'm treating them
like a research team of grad students," Murphy said. But researchers Branden Gritz,
Alexander Perepechko and Javan Graham will all be seniors at North County High School.
Read More
Teachers' Externships Show Real-world Use of Classwork
Kirsten Jacobsen, Des Moines Register
"Real World Externships" have allowed more than 80 STEM teachers in Iowa to spend
six weeks seeing firsthand how the information they present to students can be used
outside the classroom.
Read More
Parity in STEM Fields at CCs and Happy Women Faculty
Insider Higher Ed
NSF is supporting a research project to focus more attention on STEM faculty at
community colleges, where men and women are about 50-50 in faculty positions over
all, and where women make up 47.7 percent of STEM faculty (compared to about one
third at four-year institutions). The researchers' major conclusion is that women
in STEM faculty positions at community colleges are happy.
Learn More
Engineers Find Soft Skills Hard
L.M. Sixel, Houston Chronicle
Universities across the country are giving their engineering and science students
extra help navigating the soft skills that may come more naturally to liberal arts
students. In some schools, the communication and leadership training is woven into
the traditional curriculum; in others, faculty and staff reinforce the skills informally
through career seminars.
Read More
Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation
US Department of Commerce
Women are vastly underrepresented in STEM jobs and among STEM degree holders despite
making up nearly half of the U.S. workforce and half of the college-educated workforce.
That leaves an untapped opportunity to expand STEM employment in the United States,
even as there is wide agreement that the nation must do more to improve its competitiveness.
Read Report
Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: America's Science and Technology
Talent at the Crossroads
National Academy of Engineering
This report analyzes the rate of change and the challenges the nation currently
faces in developing a strong and diverse workforce and suggests that the federal
government, industry, and post-secondary institutions work collaboratively with
K-12 schools and school systems to increase minority access to and demand for post-secondary
STEM education and technical training. The book also identifies best practices and
offers a comprehensive road map for increasing involvement of underrepresented minorities
and improving the quality of their education.
Read Report
Symposium: Unraveling the Double Bind: Women of Color in STEM
Harvard Educational Review
This work surveys research on undergraduate and graduate-level women of color in
STEM fields and assesses the experience of community college transfers and undergraduates
in those fields.
Learn More
Do Internalized Feminine Norms Depress Girls' STEM Attitudes and Perceptions
True Child
What could be causing elementary school girls who excel at math and who love science,
to suddenly lose all interest or develop low grades in these subjects in late adolescence
and early teens? One important and under-explored answer is feminine gender norms.
As girls age, they internalize gender norms that force them to make a choice between
excelling at STEM or being feminine. This report documents the existing literature,
surveys the problem in depth, and offers some intriguing new results from focus
groups with young women of color.
Learn More
STEM EQUITY PIPELINE WEBINARS
All STEM Equity Pipeline webinars are archived. Past titles include:
- GESA Works! Generating Expectations for Student Achievement Assessing Effectiveness:
Do Your Program Activities Make a Difference?
- Cognitive Beliefs and Cultural Variables Matter in STEM Career Development
- Implicit Bias in STEM: The Power of Automatic, Unintended Mindsets
- Effective Program Assessments
- And more!
Access Webinars
CAREER MAGAZINE
NAPE and Career Communications, Inc. are accepting orders for the 2011/12 American
Careers Magazine, parent edition.
ORDER NOW!
SAVE THE DATE!
The National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity's 2012 Professional Development
Institute (PDI) is scheduled for April 16-19, 2012, in Arlington, VA.
Learn more about the
2011 PDI.
RESOURCES
Calling All Digital
Divas, Web Chix and Coder Girls! The NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing
honors young women active and interested in computing and technology. Award winners
receive cool prizes, gadgets, scholarships and all girls can join a community of
fellow technically inclined young women.
"Grand Challenges for Engineering" is the theme for the Engineering Education Service Center's 7th Annual poster contest.
The National STEM
Video Game Challenge aims to motivate interest in STEM learning among America's
youth by tapping into students' natural passions for playing and making video games.
CompuGirls is a
culturally relevant technology program for girls, grades 8-12, from under-resourced
school districts in the Greater Phoenix area.
The goal of the DO-IT Scholars Program is to increase the participation
of individuals with disabilities in challenging academic programs and careers.
CALENDAR
ITEST STEM Careers Quarterly
Webinar Series: Event 2, Bioscience Careers, September 20, 2011, 3:00 ET
League for Innovation in the Community College: Second Annual STEMtech Conference, Indianapolis, IN, October
2-5, 2011
2011 Frontiers in Education
Conference, Rapid City, SD, October 12-15, 2011
Annual Conference for Women Engineers: WE11, Chicago,
IL, October 13-15, 2011
Association of Science-Technology
Centers (ASTC) Annual Conference, Baltimore, MD, October 15-18, 2011
Society of Hispanic Professional
Engineers (SHPE) Annual Conference 2011, Anaheim, CA, October 26-30, 2011
Scientists Dedicated
to Advancing Hispanics/Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) Annual
Conference 2011, San Jose, CA, October 27-30, 2011
Grace
Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, Portland, OR, November 9-12, 2011
American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and
Exposition, San Antonio, TX, June 10-13, 2012
WEPAN Columbus,
OH, June 26-28, 2012
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published in the NAPE Update are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect
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the NAPE Update does not imply its endorsement by NAPE.
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