STEM Education

The AFCEA Educational Foundation is committed to supporting STEM learning. The foundation strives for young learners to develop an early interest and background in STEM with the Gravely and Paige Grants for STEM Teachers. The grants provide elementary and middle school teachers with resources to help them provide early STEM learning experiences to engage, inspire and build confidence in students and set them on a path to success in STEM.

The Gravely Grants for elementary school STEM teachers are named after Vice Adm. Samuel L. Gravely Jr., USN (Ret.), who was the foundation’s first executive director and initiated AFCEA’s science and technology teaching tool grants programs.

From 5K Fun Runs, golf tournaments and cycling events, to luncheons and galas, AFCEA members came together with enthusiasm in 2019 in support of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education. For example, the Lexington-Concord Chapter hosted a 5K Family Fun Run for STEM, and the Dayton-Wright Chapter hosted a golf tournament to benefit its scholarship funds. In addition, the San Diego Chapter held its Fifth Annual Cycle for STEM ride, and the Los Angeles Chapter introduced its inaugural Cycling for STEM ride to fund local scholarships.

The August-Ft. Gordon Chapter is dedicated to supporting STEM students through scholarships and teacher grants. Thanks to a $100,000 endowment from the Chestnut Family Foundation, the chapter will be able to fund a new scholarship for students from the Central Savannah River Area who are majoring in STEM. Ben Chestnut, one of the trustees of the Chestnut Family Foundation and co-founder and CEO of Mailchimp, received an AFCEA Educational Foundation scholarship in 1996 to pursue his college education.

In the information age, military operations are becoming more and more dependent on network-based capabilities. Meeting the rising communication technology challenges of the future means having a workforce versed in science, technology, engineering and math, leaders suggest.

Barbara Borgonovi, vice president, Integrated Communication Systems, Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems, shared that talented workers are needed to fill employment gaps at defense companies as well as in the military. She refers to the challenge as the talent imperative.

To fill positions, industry and the government need to change how they identify, hire and retain talent, Borgonovi said.

As I have said in previous articles, I believe it is important to national security and the success of the country that we consider how to get young people more involved in STEM. Diversity also is important. While nearly as many women hold undergraduate degrees as men overall, they make up only about 30 percent of all STEM degree holders.

I thought it would be interesting and educational to get the perspective of a young woman majoring in engineering at Vanderbilt University, where 31 percent of engineering students are women, slightly above the national average.

Raising the bar for STEM education comes through practice, competition and a culture shift to help prepare the next generation of defense leaders. It’s less about how many hours of STEM courses or what is the right age to engage kids in STEM and more of a focus on how to create access to opportunities in a way that they can connect with for the long term.

Entering its sixth year, Giving Tuesday is a global day of giving celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving in the United States. Last year, Giving Tuesday broke a record with $168 million in charitable donations worldwide. The day dedicated to philanthropy is quickly emerging as a national ritual after the well-recognized shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

I wrote about STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—being a critical element of national security (CENS) in July 2015. At the time, 8.5 million STEM jobs already were on the market, with the number growing. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects more than 9 million additional STEM graduates will be needed by 2022.

So, how is the nation going to meet this CENS need that crosses nominal disciplines such as the economy, power, water, transportation and defense?

Northrop Grumman Corporation is now accepting applications for its engineering scholars competition, which will provide $192,000 in college scholarships this year to promising high school seniors graduating from Maryland schools interested in studying engineering, according to a news release. Additionally, the company will award 26 scholarships to students who live near company campuses in Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Utah and Virginia.

For many people in the U.S., the end of Thanksgiving marks the start of a whirlwind shopping season. From Black Friday to Cyber Monday, the search is on for the perfect gifts. But the holidays also bring about a season of charitable giving and a day known as Giving Tuesday.

Giving Tuesday, celebrated on Tuesday, November 29, is a global movement fueled by the power of social media and collaboration. Using the hashtag #GivingTuesday, nonprofits around the world will raise funds and awareness for their causes. The event encourages participants to find a way to give back with their time, donations or the power of their voices.

Much attention has been focused on recent achievements by women who crack or break traditional glass ceilings. In its recent series on Women in STEM, SIGNAL has highlighted many of these achievements.

We’re keeping this momentum of women in power going—and next week in Georgia, AFCEA International will host its first Women in STEM panel at TechNet Augusta.

Employers today face a scarcity of qualified candidates for coveted jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM—jobs widely regarded as vital to U.S. economic and military strength. One key reason for the lack of skilled workers is gender inequities, which share as much of the blame for the dearth of diversity in these fields.

As the U.S. Cyber Command recruits 6,200 cyber warriors for teams positioned around the world, it must deliberately work to develop a new generation of cyber-minded warfighters rather than simply repurpose existing service members to meet its goal. The nation may not be prepared to defend cyberspace unless it emphasizes key skills early in students’ educational development. Many of these efforts must begin locally, and some military forces already are working in that direction.

BridgePhase LLC, a small business provider of information technology consulting and professional services, will sponsor an annual scholarship for one science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduate student, beginning in 2016. The $3,000 award will recognize a student enrolled or enrolling in a STEM graduate degree program at an accredited U.S. academic institution. Selection for this program will be competitive and based on a candidate’s overall undergraduate and/or graduate academic performance.

Avaya Government Solutions is committed to helping the next generation of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals with a $25,000 gift to the AFCEA Educational Foundation’s STEM scholarships and grants programs for 2015.

The Advantage Business Media Young Mind Awards challenges middle school, high school and college students to design, build and present an innovative solution that solves a problem utilizing a wireless technology. Applicants must identify and describe a problem or process that needs improvement, build the product solution and demonstrate how their solution helped resolve the problem or improve the process.

Students are required to submit their designs and a short video demonstrating their finished product. A panel of judges comprising industry-recognized professionals will review the submissions based on four principles: creativity, comprehensiveness, clarity of expression and demonstration. 

Florida State University (FSU) has received more than $14 million in grants to create a program that will provide focused training, resources and support to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teachers.

A new app from the U.S. Air Force Recruiting Service challenges users to see if they have what it takes to design the next generation of military aircraft. The Make It Fly app for the iPhone hit the Apple store in November and already has positive reviews. The free program lets you build and fly your own aircraft-from fighter jets to remotely piloted bombers. The program includes a series of nine mission objectives, and users choose from different wings, engines, weapons and fuselages to create the best plane. Pick the correct parts and fly on to the next mission.

We own the night. It's the U.S. Army's slogan that encapsulates their strength when it comes to night-vision technology. And as part of the Army's push to encourage the next generation of engineers and designers, a group of local teachers got to see first hand through the eyes of a soldier.

Five science teachers from Fort Belvoir Elementary School attended Knowledge Day at Fort Belvoir. The event aimed to engage educators in Science, Technology, Mathematics and Engineering (STEM) programs in the hopes that they would take the knowledge and excitement back to the classroom. But this group quickly learned they wouldn't just be playing with high-tech toys-they were "investigating and experimenting" with some serious equipment.