Global STEMx Education Conference (Tonight's LIVE Offering: Student Entrepreneurship and the Real Flipped Classroom / 8:00PM EDT)

Interview Tonight - Student Entrepreneurship and the Real Flipped Classroom

Join me tonight, Tuesday, July 30th, for a live and interactiveFutureofEducation.com conversation with Doan Winkel and Michael Issa, co-organizers of a global student startup competition (USASBE Launch!) from the e United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship. We're going to talk about student initiative and entrepreneurship, and how they might help to redefine educational practice. Doan wrote a blog post last year that caught my eye, titled "Education – Listen Up!! You’re Using the Wrong Flip." As a self-professed drinker of the "flipped classroom juice," and a preacher of the benefits of this "revolutionary" method of teaching (his quotation marks), Doan came to find that flipping the classroom didn't produce the transformative learning he was looking for. He writes: Yes, [flipping the classroom is] innovative – “featuring new methods” – or at least it used to be. But it’s not an effective method of education if the goal is to produce engaged learners. Teachers struggle with how to deliver content. The flip was an innovative Band-Aid for the wrong problem. The problem with poor education experiences isn’t how to deliver content, but how to engage students in their own learning. He goes on to ask how we can "transform education and learning so students want to engage," and says that we need to flip the actual education experience: 1. Activate the education experience. Let students learn by doing, so they breathe life into their learning. They want it to be alive – let that happen! I spend time teaching my students how to learn first, and then hint at what to learn. They drive their own education from there. I allow them to apply the knowledge to real-world problems so it’s sticky. I develop semester-long projects because it requires sustained engagement and collaboration. My students enjoy their education because it is active. 2. Let students own their learning. Students are our customers. They have a vision for their education. Let them live it. They want to take responsibility for their own learning. Give up control of the content, put teasers in the students’ minds and they will run farther with it than you could ever go. My students enjoy their education because it is theirs, not mine. 3. Let students assess their learning process. This is the most difficult aspects of the flipped experience for most educators. Don’t assign grades. That’s right, NO GRADES!! They’re [bullsh*t] metrics. When students focus on grades (they will because they’re conditioned to by a broken education system) they lose interest in their learning, they forget what they learn post-assessment, and they look for rational (or lazy) shortcuts. Grades create feel-bad education. If that’s what you’re striving for, shame on you. If you’ve settled for that, shame on you. A single grade can’t possibly capture the entire educational experience of many months. Instead, implement an approach where students individually create a documented process. Number two above is a little bit of a dead giveaway--Doan teaches at the university level. I'm hoping those in the live audience tonight who teach in K-12 will give some feedback on how many of their students "have a vision for their education," and/or what responsibility we have to help those students develop such. And we'll ask Doan and Michael for their thoughts on this as well! See you online! Steve Steve Hargadon http://www.stevehargadon.com Date: Tuesday, July 30th, 2013 Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern (international times here) Duration: 1 hour Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in at http://www.futureofed.info. The Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit the support and configuration page. Recording: A full Blackboard Collaborate recording and an audio mp3 recording will be available after the show athttp://www.stevehargadon.com and at http://www.futureofeducation.com. From Doan's Blog: "My name is Doan Winkel. "It’s a unique name (the first part anyway), which I think accurately represents the unique approach I take to entrepreneurship, education and life in general. "I am a husband and a father, an entrepreneur and an educator. "I practice being a husband and father in Normal, IL (ironic, I know!!) "I practice education by teaching entrepreneurship at Illinois State University. "I practice entrepreneurship through SproutEcon, LLC. "My goal is to leave a positive footprint in this world by being a force of productively disruptive change that motivates younger generations to tackle their dreams and turn their ideas into realities."Michael Issa is Co-founder and CEO of Quipu Applications, Inc., and is responsible for the overall strategy, operations, and financial management of the company. Previously, Mr. Issa served as Vice President of Product Management at Quipu, responsible for all aspects of research and design of Quipu’s flagship product, BusinessPlan. For the last fifteen years, Mr. Issa has held various positions in the data center and enterprise infrastructure industry for both software and hardware manufacturers. He holds an MS in Mathematics, Curriculum and BS in Finance and Marketing.

Visit Global STEMx Education Conference at: http://stemxcon.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

Today's STEMconnector Town Hall Meeting (Promising Practices for Industry Engagement in STEM Schools / Forgive the Technical Difficulties @Newbies)

Reminder - LIVE Today @ 11 am - TN STEM Innovation Network Webinar - (Review of STEM success story, legislation & looking forward to 2014)

The American Chemical Society Tennessee Government Affairs Committee,
The Tennessee STEM Innovation Network, and
The STEM Education Caucus

Cordially invite you to a briefing

Review of STEM Legislation &
A Roadmap for Next Year
An Online Webinar

As most states move forward with their individual STEM agenda, Tennessee continues on a strong path towards STEM success. Join us as we review past STEM legislation from the 2013 Tennessee legislature, and as we look towards 2014. We will also review innovative programs from both the private and public sector aimed at increasing the STEM competitiveness of the state.
Tuesday, July 30 10:00am CDT (11:00am EDT)	Online Webinar Questions? ContactLan@ACS.org	REGISTER Click on the link above or copy and paste this address into your browser to register:  https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/458294850

Obama Visit to Chattanooga, LIVE today @ 1:30 - Manufacturing & Jobs (STEM & RTTT Investments)

President Obama to discuss jobs during Chattanooga visit

Tuesday President Obama will make a rare trip to East Tennessee.

He'll be in Chattanooga to discuss boosting U.S. manufacturing and high-wage jobs.

The President plans to visit an Amazon facility that packs and ships products. It's part of a larger message about the economy that he's spreading nationwide.

10News Reporter Jim Matheny stopped by the Amazon facility Tuesday morning as they got ready for the event.

The President is expected to speak sometime around 1:30 Tuesday afternoon.

The White House says his speech will focus on jump-starting job growth.

This is the first in a series of speeches about the middle class that the President plans to have over the next few weeks.

Stay with 10News and wbir.com throughout the day for more on his visit to East Tennessee.  A live stream of his visit will begin at 1:30 p.m. on wbir.com.

President Obama To Visit Chattanooga Tuesday

Posted: Jul 30, 2013 7:54 AM EDTUpdated: Jul 30, 2013 7:54 AM EDT

 

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - President Barack Obama will be in Chattanooga Tuesday, and hopes to propose a "grand bargain for middle-class jobs."

Obama planned to make his remarks from an Amazon fulfillment center in Chattanooga, one of more than a dozen warehouses operated by the world's largest online retailer, which announced Monday that it would increase hiring. The company said it would add 7,000 new jobs, including 5,000 more at U.S. distribution centers that currently employ about 20,000 workers who pack and ship customer orders. Amazon.com Inc. has been spending heavily on order fulfillment to help its business grow.

"As part of his efforts to focus Washington on the middle class, today in Tennessee the president will call on Washington to work on a grand bargain focused on middle-class jobs by pairing reform of the business tax code with a significant investment in middle-class jobs," Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said.

Obama planned to tour the packing floor of the Chattanooga warehouse, which opened in September 2011. It is one of the company's largest and newest facilities, with more than 1 million square feet - the size of more than 28 football fields full of merchandise.

The plant was the source of tax controversy when it opened; Amazon originally was granted an indefinite waiver on collecting sales tax in a deal to bring two distribution centers to Tennessee. The state's retailers were outraged that they were put at a competitive disadvantage, and Amazon has agreed to start collecting Tennessee sales tax next year.

Meanwhile, the Tennessee Campaign for Liberty said they plan to protest against Internet Sales Tax, also known the Marketplace Fairness Act, which was written by U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander and supported by Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam.

The White House said Obama wasn't visiting Amazon because of the company's position on taxes, but because it's an example of a successful American business growing and creating more jobs.

Obama proposed last year to overhaul corporate taxes by lowering rates from the current 35 percent to 28 percent, with an even lower effective tax rate of 25 percent for manufacturers. The U.S. has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, but many businesses avoid the full cost by taking advantage of deductions, credits and exemptions that Obama wants to eliminate.

Obama wants to do away with corporate tax benefits like oil and natural gas industry subsidies, special breaks for the purchase of private jets and certain corporate tax shelters. He also wants to impose a minimum tax on foreign earnings, a move opposed by multinational corporations and perhaps the most contentious provision in the president's plan.

While Republicans have called for a corporate tax overhaul, it was unclear whether they would sign on to Obama's offering. The president has made little progress toward getting Republicans to sign on to a "grand bargain" of tax increases and spending cuts to reduce the deficit.

When Obama unveiled the corporate tax plan last year, congressional Republicans called for even deeper cuts for the business world. His campaign rival, Mitt Romney, wanted a 25 percent corporate tax rate.

Tennessee GOP will skip visit by President 

Obama in Chattanooga

President heads to Amazon center in Chattanooga

Jul. 30, 2013 4:49 AM   |  

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President Barack Obama is scheduled to be at the Amazon distribution center in Chattanooga today. / Susan Walsh / File / Associated Press

Written by

Michael Cass

The Tennessean

• FILED UNDER

• News
• News Government & Politics
• Bill Haslam

When President Barack Obama comes to Tennessee today to celebrate a business success story, don’t expect the state’s top officials to give him a big, bipartisan hug.

Each of the Volunteer State’s top three statewide elected officials is a Republican, and each is walking a political tightrope as the Democratic president prepares to head to the Amazon distribution center in Chattanooga. But none of them will appear with him.

Gov. Bill Haslam needs the Obama administration’s help with a proposal to buy private insurance for poor Tennesseans who don’t qualify for TennCare, the state’s expanded version of Medicaid. But he will have to sell that plan to state Republicans who don’t care for Obama all that much, a job that will require additional finesse. Beyond that, he might not want to get too close to the president if he’s nurturing any national ambitions of his own a year away from seeking a second term as governor.

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, a former governor, has a reputation for bipartisanship but is trying to bat away attacks from his right flank as he, too, runs for re-election in a year.

Tennessee’s other senator, the recently re-elected Bob Corker, has the least to lose right now and, as a former Chattanooga mayor, the most obvious connection to the Amazon event. But even though he playedgolf with Obama earlier this year, Corker also might have decided to stay away for political reasons.

Haslam’s public schedule, released two days after the White House announced the Chattanooga trip last week, shows him making five appearances in other parts of Tennessee today.

“The governor won’t be there,” spokesman Dave Smith said in an email, adding that Haslam learned of the president’s trip on Wednesday. “He had a full day planned in the Upper Cumberland region (today), and he plans on keeping those appointments.”

Haslam does not have any other public events scheduled in the state for the rest of the week.

An Alexander newsrelease said the senator is scheduled to co-host “a roundtable focused on expanding school choice for parents” today in Washington. That event also will feature U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican and tea party favorite with whom Alexander clearly doesn’t mind being seen these days. He co-hosted a similar event with Paul on Monday in Nashville.

Alexander criticized Obama in a written statement.

“First, I’d like to hear the president explain to Tennessee employers how they’re going to add new jobs and at the same time pay all the additional costs imposed by the president’s health-care law. And second, I hope he’ll reassure Tennesseans that his new labor secretary and National Labor Relations Board appointees won’t do anything to undermine our right-to-work law, which has helped Tennessee attract more than 100,000 auto jobs over the past 30 years.”

A Corker spokeswoman said the senator, who was Chattanooga’s mayor from 2001 to 2005, will be in Washington, too.

“It’s the last week of this work session and a very busy day,” Laura Herzog wrote. “Sen. Corker has a banking committee hearing, a foreign relations business meeting, and nominations hearings and votes are possible.”

In a statement with a softer edge than Alexander’s, Corker said: “Chattanooga is one of those great cities in the world, so it’s easy to see why any president would want to visit. In addition to our outstanding Amazon facility, I hope the president’s trip will also highlight other things that make Chattanooga a great place to live and work: a vibrant downtown and riverfront, the fastest Internet connection in the U.S., and the world’s first and only LEED Platinum certified car factory — VW Chattanooga — which has created more than 5,000 jobs in the region.”

Corker played golf with Obama at Andrews Air Force Base in May. He also went to dinner with the president and 11 other Republican senators in March, The Washington Post reported.

U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, the Republican who represents Chattanooga in the House of Representatives, doesn’t plan on attending the Amazon event, either. He put out a statement last week lambasting the president’s policies.

'Great things happening'

While the Tennessee Republican Party’s senior statesmen won’t be in the Scenic City today, the state party’s anti-Obama message will. The party said it has bought time on Chattanooga broadcast and cable TV stations to air an advertisement “about the great things happening here in Tennessee because of Republican principles in action.”

“We hope the president uses this opportunity to see what real leadership looks like and takes those lessons back to Washington,” Chairman Chris Devaney, who planned to be in Chattanooga on Monday and today, said in a news release.

In an email, party spokesman Brent Leatherwood called the TV ad purchase “significant” for a non-election year and said the party also is “coupling the television ad buy with a heavy online buy — utilizing social media outlets, Google Ads, etc. — to appropriately welcome the president to Chattanooga.” He did not provide specific amounts.

Meanwhile, Obama will get some Democratic support from Nashville. Haley Davidson, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, confirmed that Cooper would travel to Chattanooga for the Amazon event. Cooper and U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen of Memphis are the only Democrats in the state’s 11-member congressional delegation.

Amazon said Monday it plans to add 7,000 jobs nationwide, including an undisclosed number at Murfreesboro and Chattanooga warehouses. The White House said Obama would go to Chattanooga to give “the first in a series of policy speeches on his better bargain for the middle class.”

“Tuesday’s speech will focus on manufacturing and high-wage jobs for durable economic growth, and the president will discuss proposals he has laid out to jump-start private sector job growth and make America more competitive, and will also talk about new ideas to create American jobs,” the White House said.

Contact Michael Cass at 615-259-8838 ormcass@tennessean.com. Ask him a question on Twitter: @tnmetro.

What the US can Learn from Africa - How to Grow = Creativity & Entrepreneurship

What the US Can Learn From Africa’s Booming Economy

Seven out of the ten fastest-growing economies are in Africa. Behind that is a surge in healthy young people and an emphasis on local markets.

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by Imara Jones

posted Jul 24, 2013

This article originally appeared on ColorLines.com.

Photo by Randall Brummett / Flickr.

Given continued economic weakness in the U.S., it’s easy to imagine that the rest of the world remains similarly stuck. But there is one region of the world that is showing signs of economic strength in new and unexpected ways. That region is Africa.

Economic services provided by Africans for Africans is now more important than selling goods to others.

An economic renaissance currently underway in Africa is providing hope to a billion people there and creating a sense of optimism among youth. And it contains real lessons for us to learn and absorb here at home. Long seen as at the margins of global economic activity, Africa is increasingly looking like an important key to its future.

What’s going on exactly? The short answer is that Africa is booming.

Seven out of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa. Taken as a whole, Africa’s economy would be the eighth largest in the world, greater in size than rapidly rising countries like India and Russia.

What’s important is that this economic explosion is not limited to familiar economic powerhouses such as South Africa and Nigeria: a host of smaller countries, such as land-locked Zambia, are in on the action as well.

What’s even more important is that the African economic renaissance—unlike growth in the U.S.—is broad-based, touching all income groups.

The percentage of Africans living in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank, fell below 50 percent for the first time ever last year. Consulting firmMcKinsey forecasts Africa will have a larger middle class than India starting next year.

So what’s behind Africa’s meteoric rise? There are two mega trends at work.

The first is a dramatic surge in the number of young, healthy, and productive people. That trend has been driven by the slowing pace of new infections of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other preventable diseases, and by the slowing rate of mortality overall.

In Malawi, for example, new HIV infections have fallen by 73 percent since 2001. As a result of impressive gains like these, Africa’s population has grown by 250 million people—a number greater than the populations of Brazil and Canada combined—in little more than a decade. Hundreds of millions of young adults and their resulting productive capacity have helped set the stage for Africa’s economic growth.

The second key factor is the continent’s increasing reliance on its own markets to fuel its economy.

Past African growth spurts were fueled through the extraction of natural resources for export from the continent. Natural resources are still pivotal to Africa’s economic story, but what’s totally different is that the economic services provided by Africans for Africans are now more important than selling goods to others. In fact McKinsey points out that two out of every three dollars in new African economic activity come from goods and services sold within Africa itself.

And it’s this reversal in the source of African prosperity which gives confidence that the region may have entered a new phase in its history.

Given the sustained upswing, there are likely takeaways from the African economic experience for those of us on the other side of the Atlantic. If so, here are three good candidates.

1. Provide local services for local communities.

Even in the most critical economic circumstances there are essential goods and services that local economies can’t do without and will support financially. That’s the example of Zimbabwe-based Innscor Limited, a food services company that began in 1987 by cooking chicken and baking bread in a local neighborhood of the capital city.

As Vijay Mahajan details in his book Africa Rising, against the backdrop of a prolonged economic depression, hyperinflation and political upheaval, Innscor grew from a community business to one of the largest companies in southern Africa with operations in seven countries in under 20 years.

As other businesses folded due to the collapse of Zimbabwe’s economy at the hand of President Robert Mugabe, demand for food provided by Innscor’s restaurants and bakeries increased rather than shrank. The skills the company honed during these tough times allowed it to grow and the know-how gained gave it the strength to thrive in equally tough markets across Africa.

2. Technology can help level the playing field.

Africa has one of the lowest broadband access rates in the world, but technology is still making all the difference through the innovative use of cell phones.

In 2000 there were 3 million cell phones in Africa; now there are over 750 million. Simple, non-smartphone platforms are helping the poorest improve their living standards. Services that transmit daily crop prices to rural farmers, asJenny Aker and Issac Mbiti detailed in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, have boosted farm profits by as much as 30 percent in some areas.

In Kenya, the text-based banking application M-Pesa provides 8 million subscribers with basic banking, money transfer, and bill payment services. In countries without an expansive banking infrastructure, mobile money applications like M-Pesa help Africans meet their basic needs.

3. Creativity is your greatest strength.

"All Africans are creative by nature and entrepreneurs by necessity," says Nigerian-born Bola Marquis, founder of the London-based Okun contemporary African menswear line.

In a number of important areas these two qualities have combined to create a new force. Mercedes-Benz Johannesburg Fashion Week is now a must-stop for the international fashion world, with Arise Magazine Fashion Week not far behind.

Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry, now churns out more films than Hollywood or Bollywood, the Indian film juggernaut. Just this past year two African Web-based networks have launched from Nigeria: Ndani TV and Arise TV.

"Youth culture is driving Africa. We want everything that people have in the West, but we want to create it and we want to control it," adds Marquis.

As Africa’s economy continues its rebirth, those may be words that we all increasingly learn to live by.

---

Imara Jones is the Economic Justice contributor for ColorLines.com. Follow him on Twitter at @imarajones.

Obama Budget 2014 Restructuring & STEM Program Consolidation Reshuffle Creates Kurfuffle (WHAT they SAID!)

Obama Budget Threatens Popular STEM Education Initiatives

 

Bonnie Rochman July 24, 2013

Ayah Idris, 14, spent two weeks of her summer isolating strawberry DNA at a Seattle cancer research center, watching heart cells pulse in a dish and learning about ethical guidelines for animal research.

The Summer Fellows program “sparked a little passion in me,” says Ayah, a rising 10th-grader whose parents are from Eritrea. “I was kind of interested in science before, but I didn’t really know that much about it. Now I know that science in the real world is what I want to do.”

This type of inspiring dive into the rigors and rewards of a career in science would seem to be a perfect antidote to the national hand-wringing over the slipping state of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education in the U.S. In addition to offering the kinds of inquiry-based experiences that have been shown to best promote science learning, programs such as the Summer Fellows bring kids in contact with the latest scientific advances that have yet to be published in textbooks. Now, the funds that bolster these programs are in danger.

The Obama administration’s fiscal year 2014 budget lays out a sweeping restructuring intended to consolidate STEM education in the U.S. into three agencies—the Department of Education, the National Science Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution—and to cut down on the inefficiency of overlapping initiatives. Funding overall for STEM programs is actually slated to increase by 6 percent, to $3 billion, under the proposal. But support for popular educational initiatives from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), along with those from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, appears to have been lost in the consolidation shuffle. It’s instructive to examine the changes to education about health, often the area of science  students identify with most.The $15.4 million Science Education Partnership Awards (SEPA) administered by the NIH, for instance, are on the chopping block: they fund 60 or so   programs such as the one Idris attended, along with museum exhibits, classroom curricula, teacher professional development, mobile science lab buses and Web sites. Each year, SEPA programs reach more than 80,000 K-12 students in person and provide learning resources for millions of students and educators online; the SEPA grants account for the bulk of the money powering the nation’s informal health science education that takes place outside formal classroom programs.

Perhaps even more bewildering about the budget-trimming is the understanding among SEPA recipients that the NIH Office of Science Education, which oversees the coordination of the agency’s education efforts, is poised to shut its doors September 30, according to Louisa Stark, a genetics professor at the University of Utah. In total, the NIH is slated to lose $26 million. Sequestration cuts have made the situation more dire. “Facing extraordinary budget uncertainties, it’s a question of prioritization,” says Lawrence Tabak, principal deputy director at the NIH. Still, he remains hopeful that other coordinating agencies will take advantage of the NIH’s expertise. “We continue to feel that K-12 STEM education is extremely important, and we want to do what we can to make sure any new programs launched are accurate and reflect the most recent modern science.”

Tabak wouldn’t confirm the scheduled closing of the NIH Office of Science Education, but Jeanne Ting Chowning, senior director at the Northwest Association for Biomedical Research who developed the Summer Fellows program, says employees are scrambling to find a repository for the Office’s storehouse of educational materials and searching for an new online home for reams of science curricula once the official Web site eventually goes dark.

“It really is an emergency,” says Chowning, whose organization promotes an understanding of biomedical research and ethics both in and out of the classroom. More than half her budget comes from the U.S. government; the rest is from membership, sponsors and foundations. “The key is that these supplements from the Office of Science Education are developed and vetted by the highest-quality scientists we have in our country,” Chowning says. “As a teacher, you know you can trust their integrity.”

U.S. pupils of course study health and science in school. But programs funded by SEPA grants tackle cutting-edge issues, allowing students to grapple with contemporary health challenges facing scientists and academics. Students might model how infectious disease spreads or study how different states approach the public-health issues surrounding opting out of vaccinations. They might explore the connection between addiction and the brain or debate the allocation of organ transplants. They might use Skittles to learn about control groups and blinding in research studies. “We put out a unit on epigenetics,” says Stark , who recently organized the annual NIH science education conference, “that’s not even in textbooks yet.”

The informal programs also influence teaching in the classroom. In North Carolina, Chowning’s counterpart Suzanne Wilkison recommended that materials developed by the NIH Office of Science Education underpin a N.C. Department of Public Instruction statewide high school course on biomedical technologies. More than 7,000 students took the class last year. Wilkison recently helped educators piece together another course based on six NIH curriculum supplements, one of which tracks the evolution of medicine—now its future is unclear. “We contacted the Office and said, ‘North Carolina just started down the path of creating this course using your tools,’” says Wilkison, president of the N.C. Association for Biomedical Research. “‘What should we do?’”

Perhaps the greatest void would come from losing the hands-on teaching and outreach to underrepresented students like Idris that characterizes SEPA programs. To understand how alcohol is digested, for example, kids in Boston conducted their own experiments: they put a fixed amount of enzyme in a test tube and poured in increasing amounts of alcohol. “We do it with a color change so students can watch what happens,” says Carla Romney, director of research for CityLab, the SEPA-funded program at Boston University’s School of Medicine. “You add more and more alcohol, and eventually the enzyme can’t keep up. That’s how you get drunk. We don’t say, ‘Don’t drink.’ Instead we teach kids what happens to their body when they drink.”

Such vivid experiences make SEPA programs popular, leaving observers puzzled about the impending cuts. In a recent conference call between the agencies designated to helm STEM education and recipients of NIH science education grants, “none of the three agencies said that health literacy or health education was within their mission,” recalls Stark, who directs the Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah. The center has relied on NIH funding to develop the most widely used online genetics education resource in the world. Learn.Genetics (for students and the general public) and Teach.Genetics (for instructors) are in the top 99.995 percentile of the Internet’s most visited sites. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Stark says.

Under the reorganization, the number of all STEM programs would shrink from 226 to 110. “These disciplined choices to reorganize and cut back lower-priority or narrow-purpose programs make room for targeted increases, allow for easier coordination, and improve opportunities for rigorous evaluation of the remaining programs,” John Holdren, director of the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, told the Senate budget committee in May.

The Senate is not persuaded and is now pushing back. In mid-July, the Senate Appropriations Committee released a report that expressed its displeasure with the reallocation of resources, saying it “is not convinced that the quality of these programs would be maintained if they were moved to other Federal agencies.” The committee called for NIH to continue operating the Office of Science Education and the SEPA programs.

But budget-making moves slowly inside the Beltway, leaving educators worried that by the time funding might get restored, much of the infrastructure—not to mention the people who supported that infrastructure—will have disappeared.

That could leave students like Idris in the dark about what a future career in science might look like. After participating in the summer program, she has her sights newly set on becoming a bioengineer. “Before the fellowship,” says Ayah, “I didn’t even know what that is.”