Superbowl of STEM The 3rd Annual Flagstaff Community STEM Celebration kicked off the week on Monday, March 7th at the NAU Skydome with almost every school, STEM business, government agency, and non-profit in Flagstaff! You can relive the excitement with Flg4TV's 2 minute video here! High-Altitude Balloon Launch On Wednesday, March 9th, Teacher Kaci Heins and 100 NPA 6th graders sent their payload to over 106,000 feet on a high-altitude balloon from the Flagstaff Airport. Community Leader Bruce Sidlinger and his Aeronautics Engineering class from Flag High, Airport Director Barney Helmick, the Coconino Amateur Radio Club, the Civil Air Patrol, and many other community partners were there to assist. You can see images and hear the story from KNAU's science and technology field reporter Melissa Sevigny here. Women Executives in STEM Panel NAU hosted the panel on Thursday, March 10th. All of the women had connections to NAU and facilitator Elizabeth Glass recommended that the many students in attendance use their alumni network as they search career opportunities. AZ North Regional The Skydome was brimming again on Friday and Saturday with the CocoNuts and 52 other teams, for NAU's inaugural FIRST Robotics Arizona North Regional contest, which pitted robots against each other to try to take down a castle. You can read Corina Vanek's article on the event here. Microchip sponsored pit tours by volunteers from many of the teams, as well as a VIP luncheon that was well-attended by Flagstaff's government, business, and education leaders. FIRST, which stands for --- , is a non-profit founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway. It encourages students to pursue STEM and also develops skills in teamwork, problem-solving, creativity, and gracious professionalism. Congratulations to everyone on helping make STEM Week 2016 the best ever in Flagstaff STEM City!
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Jillian Worssam, the first STEM City Teacher of the Year, and professional science educator at Sinagua Middle School, had a big day on Friday, October 23rd, with her "Scientists in the Classroom" program. Initiated by Jillian several years ago, this program now includes 19 community STEM partners (link here for a list of all classroom STEM partners) that are paired with Jillian's and other science educators classes at Sinagua Middle School. On Friday, TGen North, Nestlé Purina, Mountain Heart and Lowell Observatory each had representatives visiting one of Jillian's 8th grade classes. Scientists in the Classroom consists of two separate initiatives. The monthly classroom mentor program, and a one-on-one scientist-with-student mentoring program for Honors Classes. You can read more about both at the program website and in this Arizona Daily Sun article by Corina Vanek here.
Ande Burke, the Marketing Director for Mountain Heart, has the distinction of being the very first classroom mentor for the Scientists in the Classroom program! The one-on-one program where a scientist is paired with Honors student includes Jeff Hall, the Director of Lowell Observatory, who visited Jillian's class to present the latest in space to the entire class. Rory Hack, his mentee, will become the classroom expert on Dr. Hall's research. Scientists in this program are not all local; there are 60 partners total, and some are from as far away as Russia and Scandinavia, New Zealand, and the Antarctic bases! Scientists and students share two e-mails per month as students learn more about the scientist and their research and produce podcasts, videos, papers and more.
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