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STEM Reality Check: 1 in 5 Americans is Illiterate

Zora Ball is Young, Gifted and Black

Sometimes good news does sell. The story of the first-grader who developed a mobile video game has gone viral.

Seven-year-old Zora Ball is a student at Philadelphia’s Harambee Institute of Science and Technology Charter School. Her teacher, Tariq Al-Nasir, told CBS Philly:

She was given very basic information. She transformed her screen into a nail salon! She found a picture of a ballerina, she found a picture of a jewel, and then another picture of a vampire. The game she created is called “Vampire Diamonds,” and the object is to get the diamond and avoid the vampire.

Little Zora, the youngest computer programmer in the country, was recently featured at an event hosted by STEM evangelist will.i.am. Awesome!

STEM Puts a Dip in Your Hip, Glide in Your Stride

OK, not really. But the man who promised to put “more dips in your hips, more glide in your stride” reminded us that STEM is everywhere. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.

I grew up listening to Frankie “Hollywood” Crocker.

Back in the day, Hollywood went, well, Hollywood and appeared in five films, including Cleopatra Jones and Darktown Strutters.  In Five on the Black Hand Side, he played Rolls Royce, a numbers runner. Before state lotteries, folks played the numbers, the “poor man’s stock market”:

Once known as the “policy numbers game” in Harlem, playing the numbers was a way of making ends meet as well as a way of meeting other needs in the economically starved community. Playing the numbers, a game where players betted on a series of three digit numbers from 000 to 999, was considered the “poor man’s stock market.”

The numbers man carried the money and betting slips to the policy bank. Some were mathematical geniuses who didn’t need slips; instead, they memorized the numbers.

Today’s Black History Month lesson: From runaway slaves looking for the North Star to their descendants running numbers to make ends meet, STEM is in black folks’ DNA.

Meet Edward Welburn, a STEM Superstar

The Philadelphia Auto Show ended yesterday. I’m a confirmed non-driver so I was not among the thousands of car enthusiasts at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

But I am a STEM enthusiast and chief evangelist for Philly Phresh Start, a project to increase interest in STEM among underrepresented minorities. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.

The Philly Phresh Start Project will drive home the fact that STEM is everywhere. We will introduce black youth to STEM superstars like Edward T. Welburn Jr., General Motors’ vice president of global design.

Welburn is the highest-ranking African American in the automotive industry. On Saturday, he received the Trumpet Foundation’s Corporate Award.

Check out this video with Welburn and Jay Leno who, by the way, could put on his own auto show.

 

Obama Calls on Americans to Reach Higher

In his second inaugural address, President Obama said “our journey is not complete.”

Obama called on Americans to “reach higher”:

We understand that outworn programs are inadequate to the needs of our time. So we must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, reach higher.

Obama told the nation why STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) matters:

We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries, we must claim its promise. That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure -- our forests and waterways, our crop lands and snow-capped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

The Philly Phresh Start Project intends to answer Obama’s call. We will empower underrepresented minorities to reach for their star.

In doing so, we will help black youth complete their journey to a brighter future.

Students Dance and Get into Math Groove

I smiled as I read this PBS post, “How Math Got Its Groove Back”:

Carrie Lewis and Kelly Steele’s fifth grade students slide and spin across the classroom floor, doing the hustle, the robot and the running man. While it may look at first glance like goofing off, these students are actually dancing for a higher cause...math.

Lewis, a STEM specialist for Virginia’s Lynchburg city schools, and Steele, who teaches gifted education in Bedford County, Virginia, are both math enthusiasts eager to instill in their students a love of the subject. And dancing, they hoped, might be just the thing to help tackle a common fifth-grade learning deficit -- number patterns.

The “dance by numbers” lesson plan is at the intersection of art and math.

STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) is the sweet spot for the Philly Phresh Start Project, which will be launched in March. We will shake our groove thing as we show underrepresented minorities that STEM is everywhere. In the meantime, follow us on Twitter: @PhillySTEAM.

Why STEM Matters

Hint: It's the economy, stupid.