Obama Pledges $240 Million to STEM Education

Mar 23, 2015
Exciting news from Washington, DC. on March 23, 2015. With the White House Science Fair as a backdrop, President Obama announced a huge funding boost for STEM education and pledged $240M STEM education campaign. $90M in Federal funds will expand STEM opportunities for underrepresented youth like girls and those in the minority. In addition, a coalition of corporate CEO's pledged $150M for a philanthropic effort aimed at expanding high-quality STEM education programs for the benefit of 1.5M more students in 2015. (Photo © Scripps Wire: "Obama 'amazed' by student science fair demonstrations") The theme of this year's science fair: "Diversity and Inclusion in STEM"

I applaud President Obama's efforts to make STEM education readily available to all students. I'm especially excited about this new effort aimed at improving diversity in STEM education, which has been a focus of mine for many years.

My company, Globaloria, designs and delivers courses that guide students towards effective digital citizenship by empowering their STEM learning via game design and coding. If we want children to learn new thinking skills and to master hard concepts, we need to make learning fun. That's what we do at Globaloria. Playing computer games is the lure. Inventing, designing, coding and engineering a creative playable game is a powerful way to teach computer science and other subjects simultaneously. In the digital world, Computer Coding is the new writing, the new literacy.
Photo © NBC News: "Supergirls Conque Obama at White House Science Fair"

AP: "Obama, wowed by young scientists, announces new STEM pledges"

The White House OSTP: "The incredible Kid-Ingenuity on Display at the 5th White House Science Fair"

All told, the steps launched today bring the Administration's grand total up to $1 billion in commitments and in-kind support to advance the President's Educate to Innovate campaign, which aims to inspire more girls and boys to excel in STEM subjects.

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Tags: stem education