GASEF Funding Awards March 2023
On March 22, 2023, the General Atomics Sciences Education Foundation announced awards of $17,500 in funding to 3 organizations and programs to improve K-12 STEM education.
1. $10,000 to San Diego Children’s Discovery Museum for their Access for All program
Funding supports the Museum’s Access for All STEM Scholarships to reach thousands of young learners, aged 0-10, in San Diego County. The Museum offers free and low-cost educational exhibits and workshops onsite to low-income and under-resourced children through Access for All STEM Workshop Scholarships. The program enables the Museum to offer their two signature STEM enrichment programs, Onsite Field Trips and the Mobile Children’s Museum, at no cost to low-income students. Last year, SDCDM served over 7,000 children through the Mobile Children’s Museum programs. At most of the Museum’s mobile partnership sites, young learners would otherwise receive little to no STEM education. The workshops integrate STEM with social-emotional learning and purposeful play and align with California State Standards, including Common Core State Standards, and Next Generation Science Standards. The educational programs build over 50 fluencies, including spatial awareness, problem-solving, and collaboration, and develops children's cognitive skills, social abilities, and physical well-being from the earliest childhood years when it matters the most.
2. $5,000 to North County Education Foundation for their Super STEM Saturday event
The grant helps cover costs for the Super STEM Saturday festival on March 11, 2023, a one-day STEM festival that has approximately 18,000 attendees from all over the greater San Diego region. It includes all youth and ethnic demographics in our region with a special focus on K-12 students interested in the STEM disciplines and careers. The time period for using the funds is March and April 2023. The sponsorship funds will go to pay for event fees and expenses including exhibition booth table and canopy rentals, event parking, program printing, t-shirts, facility rental, etc. Super STEM Saturday welcomes thousands of families to the campus of Cal State San Marcos to discover science, reimagine technology, create engineering, and explore math concepts. With nearly 120 hands-on, interactive STEM activities and demonstrations, Super STEM closes the ten-day San Diego Festival of Science and Engineering, the largest celebration of innovation and science education in Southern California. GA has also sponsored and actively participated in the event since at least 2018. Daren Wade, Director, EE Integration Group, Aircraft Systems Group helps host the exhibition booth and champions the sponsorship request.
3. $2,500 to Expanding Your Horizons-San Diego for their 2023 EYH Conference
The grant will support the 2023 EYH Conference on March 18th, 2023 to support the cost of attendance for many girls. EYH Conference is a unique event in San Diego as it provides girls with a day of science discovery in laboratories on a college campus through workshops conducted by professionals from industry, government organizations and academia. Since 2002, the yearly conference has connected 350-450 girls annually from varied socio-economic backgrounds with local STEM professionals. Each group of 15-20 participants is mentored by 2-3 female STEM undergraduate students, providing role models that research indicates is vital to inspiring to 6-10th grade females. These elements are designed to increase the girls’ interest in STEM careers by providing exciting STEM experiences and interactions. Funding resources are focused on providing fee waivers to any girl that requests one, as well as organizing transportation for schools in need.