The 2021 School's Out, Make It Count Conference will feature more than 50 workshops designed specifically for out-of-school time professionals. Eight of these workshops will focus on STEM learning.

One of the featured STEM workshops is:

The UArizona Data Science Academy team will present tools, resources, and ideas to engage youth in exploring the natural environment through the lens of a citizen scientist and data detective. Student curiosity will be ignited through their interest in a myriad of topics about the environment around them. Using data science as a tool, youth can explore answers to their questions by gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data. Examples of how these citizen science and data science tools can be implemented across a variety of settings with youth will be shared. The goal is that science and data are made accessible to all and to empower youth to understand the world around them in new ways.

Million Girls Moonshot (MGM) offers tools and resources for programs looking to implement STEM learning in summer programming. Here are this month's featured activities from MGM:

▶ NASA's Favorite House Plants for Space Stations and You - The Grow Network - Select a plant to grow and keep a record of its change over time. Design a flowerpot for space—what shape works best? How deep does it need to be? What do scientists need to consider to grow plants in space? 

▶ Design A Crew Module - Use materials that are easy to find at home to build a crew capsule for spaceflight. Practice engineering design process to improve on the original design. Grades 4-8. 

▶ Straw Towers to the Moon - Let your kids’ imaginations run wild. Build the biggest tower, or the best balanced, or the most attractive…change the criteria to change the design. Grades K-8. 

▶ Landing Humans on the Moon Educator Guide - These easy to do activities for grades K-8 use engineering design process to problem-solve solutions for survival on the moon. 

▶ Be “Cool” with Popsicle Engineering - Students learn the design process using easy to find materials (for example, popsicle sticks and KoolAid) to produce purple popsicles. Perfect for a summer day with young kids!

A major initiative of the [Arizona Technology] Council’s and the SciTech Institute is the Chief Science Officer (CSO) program, designed to build excitement and enthusiasm for young students interested in technology. Participating schools encourage girls and boys in grades 6 through 12 to get elected as CSOs by their peers. Youth who become CSOs are invited to a summer leadership institute, where they create a customized action plan aimed at impacting STEM learning.

The CSO program began in Arizona in 2015 and has expanded to 720 children in 10 states and three countries around the world. It aims to cultivate a pipeline of diverse STEM leaders and to help prepare them for college, careers and civic engagement. The program also helps solve the challenge of gender disparity by addressing the problem at the beginning of the pipeline. The program has been successful in this regard because more than 50 percent of the CSOs elected in 2020 were girls. This next generation of technology talent will help inspire even more women to get involved with STEM programs and education to help us reach parity and eliminate gender bias in our industry.