Hello from the Sedona 30 Committee for Excellence in STEM. Most of us had a restful but productive summer, as we hope you did, and we would like to bring you up-to-date on the committee’s activities since our last report in June. While we did not proceed at full speed over the summer, there are a number of positive items to report.
The most important is the arrival of Sedona’s new superintendent of schools, Mike Aylstock. He has met a number of times with representatives of the committee as well as the committee as a whole and he has promised his full commitment to lead this initiative and to work closely with the committee to achieve the goals of the STEM project. Ed Ingraham has been appointed to serve as day-to-day liaison from the committee to the superintendent’s office.
Sedona Miracle 2008 is a major philanthropic event being held on the weekend of November 1-2 at Seven Canyons. It raises money for the Boys and Girls Club of Northern Arizona, the Verde Valley Sanctuary, and the Sedona Community Foundation. This year the STEM project and the Sedona Community Foundation jointly invited Bob King, the President and CEO of the Arizona Community Foundation, to come to Sedona for the weekend to learn about the Sedona STEM project. This is another important initiative to search out potential financial and community support for the project.
Rod Abbott and Dick Kruse continue to spearhead the establishment of connections with various educational institutions and foundations. The public universities of the State are being brought on board. On November 10, the second meeting with administrators and scholars from ASU’s Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering and Mary Lou Fulton College of Education took place in Sedona. Contacts are being developed with Northern Arizona University, the University of Arizona, and the Arizona Science Foundation. Representatives of the Helios Education Foundation and the Flynn Foundation have agreed to come to Sedona to visit with us to see how they can help.
We plan to schedule another meeting with the teachers of the district and we are talking with Mike Aylstock about when and how would be best to do that.
FIRST: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology
Little known fact: We have a FIRST program here in Sedona!
Recently, Brandeis University’s Center for Youth and Communities conducted an independent, retrospective survey of FIRST Robotics Competition participants and compared results to a group of non-
FIRST students with similar backgrounds and academic experiences, including math and science. Highlights of the study’s findings include:
When compared with the comparison group, FIRST students are:
- More than 3 times as likely to major in engineering.
- Roughly 10 times as likely to have had an apprenticeship, internship, or co-op job in their freshman year.
- Significantly more likely to expect to achieve a post graduate degree.
- More than twice as likely to expect to pursue a career in science and technology.
- Nearly 4 times as likely to expect to pursue a career specifically in engineering.
- More than twice as likely to volunteer in their communities.
FIRST Vision
“To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes.”
Dean Kamen, Founder
FIRST Mission
Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.
Foregoing text from www.USfirst.org
We hope you have found this update helpful and interesting.
Please send any comments and suggestions you have to
Dick Kruse at dkruse@fci-benefits.com or to Ed Ingraham at ingraham@msu.edu.
THE SEDONA 30
