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Industry
Tech Leaders Call On Gov. Brown To Increase K-12 Computer Education (Silicon Beat)
A group of Silicon Valley tech leaders and school district chiefs has sent a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown, hoping for a sitdown to talk about ways to expand computer science in California�s K-12 schools. The signers include Twitter Executive Chairman Jack Dorsey, Google Head of Education Research Maggie Johnson, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Oakland Superintendent District Gary Yee, San Francisco Superintendent Richard Carranza and Stanford President John Hennessy. �We�re asking for a meeting to talk about it,� one of the signers, Hadi Partovi, co-founder of Code.org, told this newspaper. �Our goal is to signal that this is important.�
Local Students Receive $40K Award from SCE to Study STEM Fields in College (Crown City News)
Two San Gabriel Valley students receive $40,000 scholarship from Southern California Edison for their pursuit in STEM fields in college, according to a SCE officials. John Muir High School Senior Brenden Dickerson, from Pasadena, is one of 30 students interested in pursuing this field in college to receive the scholarship. Dickerson said it feels wonderful to receive an Edison scholarship and to know he has people behind him to help him succeed in life. His favorite subjects in school are mathematics and science, and he plans to major in mechanical engineering in college. 
STEM Competitions
Design/Build contest works to inspire new generation of construction workers (Sacramento Business Journal)
When students from Central Valley high schools build projects as part of the Design/Build competition Wednesday and Thursday at Cosumnes River College, they may also be laying a metaphorical foundation. With more than a third of the local construction workforce disappearing in the last six years, competition programs such the one Sacramento Region Builders Exchange puts on aim to bring in much-needed new blood, according to exchange members. �Construction is not usually a priority or focus of high school curriculum, so it is hard for our industry to inspire young people to look at career pathways in the building and construction field,� said Peter Tateishi, the exchange�s executive officer, in an email.
Da Vinci Science charter team wins engineering contest (Torrance Daily Breeze)
An all-girls team from Da Vinci Science charter high school in Hawthorne recently won an engineering design competition, beating out 16 teams from Southern California. Da Vinci Science ninth-graders Kelly Crabtree, Rachel Greenberg and Cindy Magana won first place in the Chevron Engineering Design Challenge regional competition on April 26 in Redondo Beach. Using Autodesk Inventor software, each team had only one day to create an original car activity center that would function as both a work surface and a location to organize books, food, drinks and other hard-to-reach items. Professional engineers from Chevron and PLTW teachers judged students� design process and oral presentations.
UC Merced Connect: Capstone team�s designs could win DARPA competition (Merced Sun-Star)
Improvements for a ubiquitous device that cools high-powered electronics aboard military aircraft could do more than just earn a group of engineering students their senior capstone design credits. It could also win a competition funded and hosted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Office of Naval Research. Led by Professor Yanbao Ma, the six-member Team TEC � thermally efficient connector � started out answering a call from DARPA and the ONR to develop novel field-reversible, low-resistance thermal connectors that improve on the design being used.
Museums
Exploratorium teams up with UC Davis (San Francisco Business Times)
The Exploratorium and the University of California, Davis are teaming up on a series of research, education and public programs. The San Francisco museum and the university made a five-year, formal partnership that will target five areas of collaboration: environmental science, sustainable energy, coastal and marine sciences, data visualizations and food. While the Exploratorium and UC Davis have worked together previously, this marks the start of a more formal, institutional-level partnership, said Mary K. Miller, the Exploratorium�s science partnership director.
Women in STEM
Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner #63: Sponsored by Salesforce (Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners)
The women at Salesforce (@SalesforceWIT) are very excited to host a Salesforce Girl Geek Dinner � the 64th Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner � on Wednesday, May 14 at the Salesforce headquarters in downtown San Francisco! Join @SalesforceWIT for dinner, drinks and tech talks from Salesforce girl geeks on agile, product management and engineering topics. Check out demos from the engineers behind Chatter, Salesforce1 and Force.com!
Role Models Matter is an initiative to prepare STEM professionals for outreach (Techbridge Girls)
Check out the newly released free, online Role Models Matter Toolkit created by Techbridge. This interactive toolkit will help you develop skills to engage girls and underrepresented youth in STEM. If you want to be a STEM role model or you are looking to engage STEM role models to work with your youth, this toolkit will help you develop skills to engage girls and underrepresented youth in STEM through readings, videos, questions, and more. Role models play a vital role in getting youth excited about careers in STEM. Get prepared today!
STEM Jobs
Playing Matchmaker To Empty Jobs And Those Seeking Them (NPR)
The easiest time to get hired at one of the seven oil refineries in the Los Angeles area is during what's called a turnaround. These breaks, when the refineries are shut down for routine maintenance, are incredibly labor-intensive. And refineries want to get them done as quickly as possible. So companies need enough people to get the job done. But those workers must have specific skills. In this line of work, as with other U.S. industries, there's a skills gap. The key to closing that gap comes down to training. In the L.A. area, training programs are working with the local industry to meet its needs, while offering prospective employees certification, for free.
Maker Movement
California boy builds roller coaster in backyard (MyFoxBoston)
A young roller coaster enthusiast from California helped his father build an at-home theme park attraction after visiting a New Jersey theme park last summer. Lyle Pemble became fascinated with the thrill rides after riding one at Six Flags Great Adventure. "I decided to ride it because I thought it would be fun, and then I thought there are more and better roller coasters out there, so I started doing research on them," Lyle explained. His dad helped him figure out the math and science behind the coasters and suddenly a huge ride was assembled in their backyard. |
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Stay Connected
     
 Inaugural Game-A-Thon Challenges K-12 Students to Play with Math
.png) As the school year comes to a close, teachers and students across the country have a new opportunity to breathe life � and fun � into the math standards they mastered. The nonprofit MIND Research Institute, which develops and deploys the revolutionary game-based ST Math software for schools, is sponsoring its first-ever Game-a-thon for K-12 students. Following the theme �Math is Everywhere,� the Game-a-thon challenges students to design, build and share via YouTube (see sample video here or below), a game that features creative and unusual solutions to mathematical problems. Teams of two or more students, along with a teacher or parent in a coordinator role, can invent card games, board games, apps, outdoor games or anything else that solves a mathematical problem ranging from counting to irrational numbers or measurement to modeling. All participants receive prizes, and winners will be honored at a national math fair.
Watch or Re-watch the Million Women Mentors Town Hall on our YouTube Page!
sm.jpg) Thanks to all of our incredible speakers and everyone who joined us on the 1st Million Women Mentors Town Hall Conference Call yesterday on Google+. We hope you got a better sense of what's going on with the Million Women Mentors initiative, have already checked out the new "Locate Mentorship Opportunities" Map on the Million Women Mentors Website, and learned about lots of great Women in STEM programs. ICYMI or want to re-watch, click the link to access our YouTube Page with videos from all of our Town Hall events!
IT Employment Continues on Growth Trajectory in April; Engineering Job Growth Ticks Up
 The number of IT jobs grew 0.28 percent sequentially last month to 4,636,800, according to TechServe Alliance, the national trade association of the IT & Engineering Staffing and Solutions industry. On a year-over-year basis, IT employment has grown by 2.61% since April 2013 adding 117,900 IT workers. Engineering jobs ticked up in April, growing by 0.18 percent sequentially to 2,497,500. On a year-over-year basis, engineering employment has grown by 1.74% since April 2013 adding 42,700 engineering workers. |
