6 Ways to Advocate for STEM After School!

I'm very excited to attend The Afterschool for All Challenge this week on Capitol Hill.  The Challenge is an opportunity for community leaders, advocates, educators and after school program experts to meet elected officials and discuss the important issues in after school.  Organized by the Afterschool Alliance, the Challenge features an entire day of in-depth advocacy training, the annual "Breakfast of Champions" honoring state and national Afterschool Champions, federal policy briefings, and workshops on trending topics including STEM and Digital Learning.

We are thrilled that the Challenge will recognize a Coalition Steering Committee Member at the Breakfast of Champions: Gabrielle Lyon, co-founder of Project Exploration, will be honored along with her co-founder palentologist Paul Sereno.


Even if you are thousands of miles away from Washington DC, you can still add your voice and advocate for after school!
- Sign the Afterschool Alliance's online petition
- Send a personal leter to Congress to support Federal 21st CCLC Funding for Afterschool & Summer programs
- Ask your member of Congress to join the Afterschool Caucus
- Keep up with all of the latest advocacy news through the Afterschool Alliance 
- Read the latest research about the importance of after school programs

- Send the Coalition your story about impacting youth through quality after school education so that we may share it with elected officials on your behalf at the Afterschool for All Challenge

I am honored to advocate on behalf of the Coalition's 2,500+ members nationwide who are using their talents to bring STEM learning to children of all backgrounds!  Thank you for your membership and continued support of the Coalition!

Science Education in the New Year

Early January is a great time to reflect on success of the past year and to create goals for the year to come. Here are some things to do to re-commit yourself to introducing young minds to science in out of school time:

• Visit the our partners at Connect a Million Minds and take the pledge to connect young minds to science! 
• Grant deadlines will sneak up faster than you think! Take some time to create or update your grant and fellowship deadline calendar. Check out places like Grantmakers for Education and The Foundation Center to search for foundations and funders relevant to your projects.
• This new year also brings a new Congress at the federal level, as well as many new representatives at the state level. Become familiar with your local and state representatives, the 112th Congress, and the changes to the federal Afterschool Caucus so that you can be a strong advocate for afterschool programs in the next two years. 
• Update your Directory listings to reflect any new calendar dates and/or times!
• Check out the conferences and events that you may be interested in attending.

Do you have any STEM or education-related New Year's Resolutions or goals? What are you going to do differently in 2011?

America COMPETES Act under debate in Senate Committees

A major piece of science education legislation is winding its way through the halls of Congress. The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act funds various National Science Foundation (NSF) programs for the next three years.

The House version of the bill (H.R. 5116) sponsored by Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN) passed after three separate votes in May. Now, the bill is under review and modification in the Senate. The Senate version (S.3605) sponsored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) differs slightly in the scope of departments funded and, in an effort to win bipartisan support in a highly partisan Congress, limits the funding to just three years and contains few new initiatives. In fact, the only new initiative was proposed by the ranking Republican in the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) wants to designate $10 million to help universities train science and engineering majors to be K-12 teachers, a model that has been successfully employed in her home state by the UTeach program at the University of Texas, Austin.

In the Senate, the bill must win support in three separate committees: Commerce, Science, and Transportation (headed by Sen. Rockefeller); Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (led by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-IA); and Energy and Natural Resources (chaired by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM).

Last week, the bill was approved by a key science panel yesterday in Sen. Rockefeller's committee, bringing it one step closer to committee approval and finally to the Senate floor for debate and voting. While changes to the bill could happen at any time during the debate process, you can still voice your support for the proposal by contacting the Senators on each committee. To see if your Senator is a member of any of the above committees, click on the links below:

US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

US Senate Committee on Science, Commerce, and Transportation

You can read the text of the House of Representatives version of the bill (H.R. 5116) by visiting the bill summary and status page.