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Triangle Coalition Electronic Bulletin
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This Week's Topics:
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| Dr. Appu Kuttan, Chairman of the National Education Foundation (NEF) CyberLearning, has announced a nationwide initiative to provide scholarships to a million low and middle income individuals affected by the oncoming recession. According to Dr. Kuttan, "Fear of recession is forcing people, especially low and middle income individuals, small businesses, and others, to cut back on training, which is normally expensive. At the same time, the U.S. Labor Department is predicting a shortage of two million IT workers by 2010. An obvious solution is to make job skills training affordable to our low and middle income individuals. That is the rationale for this important initiative." The One Million Scholarships Program offers free high quality Web-based IT (includes 30 certifications), Business, Testprep, K-12 Math, Science and Technology education courses to students and teachers as well as unemployed and underemployed individuals. The course packages, each containing 100-400 courses and each worth $400-$800, are offered free, and the user pays a nominal registration fee of $30 for any course package. One could take these courses to learn new skills, improve current skills, or prepare for certifications for various software applications. More details about the scholarship are online; the deadline is May 15, 2008. . |
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Now educators can take the doldrums out of summer and have the opportunity to earn continuing education credits with the 2008 Summer Workshops offered by Vernier Software & Technology. Starting on June 11th and running through August 16th, the line-up is better than ever and will focus on hand-held data collection technology in the areas of biology, chemistry, physics, advanced placement sciences, middle school science, and elementary science education. In Vernier's general Hands-On Summer Workshops, participants will investigate how they can use data-collection technology with LabQuest handhelds, TI graphing calculators, and computers to truly motivate and inspire students. Each workshop lasts approximately six hours and includes lunch and lab handouts. More details are at www.vernier.com/workshop. . |
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| While the debate rages about the replacement of gasoline with ethanol as a viable solution to our country's dependence on fossil fuels, the top six teams in the Moody's Mega Math Challenge overwhelmingly concluded that, from a mathematical perspective, the answer is "no." High school juniors and seniors presented their solutions and justified their conclusions in 15-minute presentations last week before being awarded scholarship prizes ranging from $2,500 to $20,000 for their efforts. The top-winning team, from High Technology High School in New Jersey, concluded that, in addition to the negative economic and environmental implications of replacing gasoline with ethanol, the plan would not be cost effective until oil prices reached over $233 per barrel. They also found that corn-derived ethanol is not the best alternative form of energy, suggesting that nuclear power may actually be a better alternative for attaining national energy independence. High Technology High School, who placed in the top six the past two years, finally came away with the top award; its four team members will share $20,000 in scholarship prizes. "I thought it was incredible how they came up with the problem. It was a very good question, very specific," said Jason Zukus, a junior from High Technology. "After we wrote this paper we started hearing in the news about the food riots, the law of unintended consequences, and the effects on third-world countries, and it was like, this is a really big problem, this is real." In early March, over 250 teams from lower New Hampshire to Wilmington, Delaware, submitted viable solutions to the 2008 Challenge problem: Energy Independence Meets the Law of Unintended Consequences. Student teams were required to address issues associated with increased corn-derived ethanol production and fuel substitution and relate these matters to dramatic and unanticipated rises in farm commodity pricing, the future of food supplies in developing nations, the effect on carbon dioxide emissions, and the cost-effectiveness of producing ethanol. Teams had 14 hours to quantify these concerns using mathematical-modeling techniques, develop and defend their models, and justify their conclusions. The Moody's Foundation initiated and provides the funding for the Challenge, while the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) organizes and administers the contest. The top six winning solutions, photo galleries, and webcasts of the presentations and awards ceremony are at http://m3challenge.siam.org. . |
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The U.S. Army Research Office (USARO) will once again support a series of pre-college engineering summer camps held at nine university locations across the country to help foster an interest in engineering among high school students. UNITE, funded by the USARO and coordinated by Triangle Coalition member, JETS, serves historically underrepresented and disadvantaged populations by helping students prepare for engineering and related careers through opportunities that let them 'try-on' engineering as a course of study and as a career. While each UNITE site's program is unique to its local area, all consist of four-to-eight week summer camps which are structured around highly rigorous academic courses coupled with unique hands-on activities. . |
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| America's future scientists are on alert as registration is now open for the 2008-09 Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology. Instructions are now posted on the Siemens Foundation website, www.siemens-foundation.org, and www.collegeboard.com/siemens. College scholarships range from $1,000 to $100,000, and the high school of every regional finalist receives $2,000 per project. Students may enter as individuals or as members of a team. The Siemens Competition attracts entries from high school science and math students nationwide. In the 2007-08 competition, 1,641 students registered to enter. The $100,000 Grand Prize winners for 2007-08 represented the first young women to earn the top individual and team prizes. Isha Jain, a senior at Freedom High School in Bethlehem, PA, won top honors for her research on bone growth. The team of Janelle Schlossberger and Amanda Marinoff, seniors at Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School in Plainview, NY, were commended for their research on tuberculosis. Established in 1998, the Siemens Foundation contributes nearly $4 million dollars annually in support of math, science, and technology education from grade school to graduate school. The Foundation's mission is based on the culture of innovation, research, and educational support that is the hallmark of Siemens' U.S. operating companies and its parent company, Siemens AG. For more information, visit www.siemens-foundation.org. . |
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| The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) has released new research, made possible by Motorola Foundation, that quantifies a growing "opportunity gap" in the number of minority students pursuing degrees and careers in science and technology. In what NACME characterizes as "the 'New' American Dilemma," the report shows that rates of participation by African Americans, American Indians, and Latinos in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields have flatlined, and in some cases have actually declined. At a time when the pursuit of careers in science and technology is a major indicator of the nation's ability to be competitive and economically strong, NACME's report highlights another reason that the United States is falling behind in the global economy. The report finds a vast pool of minority students who aren't prepared for STEM fields and who thus can't contribute to the solution. The report, "Confronting the 'New' American Dilemma, Underrepresented Minorities in Engineering: A Data-Based Look at Diversity," shows that progress on this issue has been marginal, neither steady nor substantial enough for representation of minorities in STEM to reflect their overall proportion of the U.S. population. Among other statistics, the report reveals: * The proportion of bachelor's degrees in engineering awarded to African Americans between 1995 and 2005 has declined. * Though Latinos are expected to account for 25% of the U.S. population by the mid-21st century, the gap in educational attainment for Latinos relative to non-Hispanic whites has widened. * American Indians comprise only 0.4% of engineering faculty. The report also articulates a set of calls to action directed at K-12 and higher education, government, and business. For more information, visit www.nacme.org. . |
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TCEB Sponsors
To find out how your organization can sponsor the TCEB or support the Triangle Coalition in other ways, visit www.trianglecoalition.org/support.htm __________________________________________________________________________ |
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