A school with three campuses in Southern California offers a STEM-focused education to its K-12 students. Touted as the only school of its kind in the US, the school uses personalized learning, small class sizes, innovation labs, visiting speakers and other methods to teach STEM subjects to its students with a range of learning differences and special needs.
The interactive Wonder Lab at the Children's Museum of Cleveland seeks to introduce its youngest visitors to STEM through play. The exhibit encourages splashing around with water and exploring varied interests, an approach that adds more fun to learning science and math.
The Howard County, Md., government hired 11 students with developmental disabilities as interns for the next year through a partnership with Project SEARCH, which helps young adults with special needs transition from school to the working world. All of the interns will get experience in park maintenance, building and grounds, and administration.
The Defense Department has awarded a $2 million grant to Spelman College in Atlanta to establish the Center of Excellence for Minority Women in STEM. The center, which will focus on undergraduate research and training, is expected to produce more research collaborations among students, faculty and Pentagon personnel.
A new study of STEM students at four community colleges shows that electronic messages -- or nudges -- increased first-semester persistence rates by 16 percentage points compared to peers who did not receive the nudges. Persistence rates for adult students who received messages about tutoring and advising were 20 percentage points higher than those of adult students who did not receive the messages, the data shows.
Walmart has created a new package of employee perks including tuition subsidies, college credit and free SAT and ACT prep classes in a push to hire more high school students. Teens are attractive employees because they're often easier to train and less costly to employ, and other companies including Chipotle, Disney, McDonald's and Starbucks have also added benefits to court this group.
Webinar series: CTE for students with disabilities
This five-part webinar series will take a deep dive into programs, practices and partnerships among CTE and special education practitioners that support SWD in CTE. The next webinar will take place Sept. 19. Sign up.
Scholarships still available for CTE students
The Horatio Alger Association will continue to accept student applications for its career and technical scholarships on a rolling basis until all scholarships are awarded. The association will award 1,020 new CTE scholars to pursue their academic programs at community colleges and nonprofit institutions with a maximum award amount of $2,500 depending on the length of program and need of the student. Learn more.
