The annual White House Science Fair celebrates the student winners of a broad range of STEM competitions across America. The President will announce new steps as part of his Educate to Innovate campaign to get more girls and boys inspired and prepared to excel in the critical STEM fields. Building on these announcements, this year’s White House Science Fair includes a focus on diversity and inclusion in STEM.
The Making for Change Showcase, which is part of a larger effort to engage students in traditionally underrepresented groups in STEM fields, will challenge student teams at more than ten Historically Black Colleges and Universities (http://www.hbcuinnovation.org/) to design prototypes aimed at solving local problems in their communities. The White House reached out to SparkFun for involvement in February 2015, and the company donated the kits and hardware to equip many of the student teams as they begin their prototypes.
"We
are excited to continue our relationship with the White House's efforts
in improving engagement of students in science, technology, engineering
and math (STEM) fields through making," said SparkFun's Director of
Education Lindsay Diamond. "The opportunity to help students at
Historically Black Colleges and Universities explore making and
tinkering as pathways to solve local problems in their community
directly ties in with our goal to improve engagement with
underrepresented students. We look forward to seeing how the student
teams innovate new solutions to these community challenges."
Diamond's presence at the Science Fair reinforces SparkFun's ongoing commitment to improving access to and interest in STEM education initiatives nationwide. The White House will be running an ongoing live-stream of the event at www.whitehouse.gov/live from 10:00 am to 12:15 am ET.
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