Congressional App Challenge
Posted on July 22nd, 2019 by Mary Lord
Middle and high school students nationwide create apps for desktop PCs, mobile devices, or other platforms in this annual Congressional initiative aimed at engaging America’s youth in computer science and STEM.
Filed under: Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, K-12 Outreach Programs, Special Features | Comments Off on Congressional App Challenge
Tags: coding, Competitions for Students, Computer Science, Congressional app challenge, Contest, U.S. Congress
Growing up in St. Paul, Minn., Abigail Harrison dreamed of becoming the first woman to land on Mars. Unlike most aspiring space explorers, however, she pursued her passion. Now 21, Astronaut Abby – the social media presence she created at age 14 to do research for a history project on the International Space Station – has become an influential advocate for STEM education through her speeches, blog, and Twitter posts. 
A White House directive has NASA recalculating the route toward human exploration of the solar system, starting with returning humans to the Moon.
If you were an engineer or scientist, what would you wear to work? That’s the fascinating focus of Scientists Get Dressed, a new STEM-themed children’s book by award-winning author Deborah Lee Rose. The book, available this fall, includes an NGSS-aligned STEM activity called the Scientists’ Glove Challenge. 
Qatar, a small country on the Arabian Peninsula that will host the 2022 World Cup, is known for July temperatures that regularly average over 115 degrees. But soccer fans need not to worry. Engineers have come up with ways to keep the stadiums cool – including a fanciful “artificial cloud” to block the sun.
Some engineers design soccer stadiums and high-performance sports gear. Others with engineering backgrounds – like these Women’s World Cup athletes and former national team players – actually play the “beautiful game.” 
ASEE’s Pre-College Engineering Education Division (PCEE) has a new grant program for PreK-12 teachers who seek support for the implementation of an engineering project in their classroom in the 2019-2020 academic year. Teachers must be affiliated with the division. Applications due July 1, 2019.
Basic research is often invisible, though its results show up in game-changing technologies from MRIs to mobile devices to safer aircraft. To help Americans understand their oversize return on investment, the National Science Foundation has created a short video, “Your World: Brought to You by NSF,” and website depicting some of the many fruits of the lab that have roots in NSF funding. 
Competitions – whether an in-class design challenge or national science fair – can inspire students to pursue STEM. But problem-based learning also can energize and even change teachers, says Owensville (Missouri) High School science teacher Kevin Lay, whose students won top honors and $100,000 at the 2019 Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest. 
