SciMathMN last week announced the receipt of a strategic planning grant in the amount of $179,000 from Boston Scientific to support the Minnesota STEM Network, an initiative of SciMathMN. The announcement took place during the second annual meeting of the Minnesota STEM Network on April 21, 2011.
Read the full press release.

SciMathMN, with the support of HB Fuller, hosted an Adopt- A-School pilot kickoff meeting on May 12, 2011. Participants representing business, education (K-12/higher ed), non profits, and policymakers discussed ways to advance STEM engagement through community partnerships.

An initial draft of the K12 STEM BIZCONNECT Toolkit was shared with attendees. The toolkit serves as a sample guide to partnership formation and outlines a variety of program examples.
Pilot participants will review the contents of the toolkit and assist with future content revisions so the guide becomes a continuously evolving document authored by many contributors. In the future, SciMathMN plans to initiate a web-portal where partnerships can showcase their programs.
For more information on the K12 STEM BIZCONNECT Adopt-A-School pilot program, please contact Sally Standiford.

The second-annual Minnesota STEM Network year-end meeting was held on April 21, 2011 at Boston Scientific at the Maple Grove campus. The meeting, attended by over 160 STEM teaching professionals, informal STEM organizations, community leaders, and business representatives, was held at Boston Scientific. Attendees participated in a variety of keynote and breakout sessions. Feedback sessions gave participants a chance to offer recommendations on the next phase of the Minnesota STEM Network and ways to extend the reach of the organization. Sen. Al Franken discussed new legislation that would establish a STEM Master Teacher Corps for top STEM K-12 teachers. Organizers provided a recap of this year’s Network activities and outlined goals for the coming year that will include the creation of a formal strategic plan.

Featured Speakers: Dr. William H. Schmidt,
Distinguished Professor and Internationally Recognized Education Researcher and Natalie Rasmussen, Minneapolis North Community High School

This briefing was held on February 12, 2010 and featured new TIMSS information regarding the status of Science at grades 4 and 8 in Minnesota as well as the achievement gap in both math and science. The analysis showed a very strong link between poverty (as measured by Free/Reduced Price Lunch status) and low achievement. This topic will be the focus of further analysis and potential solution proposals as our work progresses.
Download Dr. Schmidt’s February 12, 2010 presentation in ppt or pdf format.

SciMathMN would like to recognize 3M as the primary sponsor of this event.
Note: The presentation slides and final report from the Oct. 21 event are available from our publications page.

Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) has partnered with SciMathMN to produce a 30 minute documentary program about the importance of STEM (Science, Technology Education, Engineering and Mathematics) education in Minnesota and the role that the TIMSS international math and science test has played in documenting our progress in STEM.

The program, titled Calculated Success, features interviews of science and math experts discussing the importance of STEM education and includes discussion of the TIMSS testing analysis that Dr. William Schmidt and the research team at Michigan State University performed. Local experts include Dr. Alex Cirillo (Vice President of Community Affairs for 3M), Brad Meeks (Superintendent of Farmington Public Schools), Nancy Nutting (former Executive Director of SciMathMN), Troy Vincent (Farnsworth Aerospace Elementary Principal), Karen Klinzing (Assistant Commissioner, MN Dept. of Ed.) and others. Calculated Success DVD’s are free to Friends of SciMathMN or are available for a cost of $10 and may be obtained by contacting: info@scimathmn.org
For information on upcoming broadcasts and quick access to online viewing, visit the program’s unique program page. This is an excellent link to share!
Major funding of this project was provided by 3M with additional funding from Cargill and ADC.