Science Club for Girls celebrated its 25th anniversary Catalyst Awards online last week. You can view their video presentation, which gives a great overview of how SCFG excels at fostering excitement, confidence, and literacy in STEM for girls and young women from underrepresented communities. SCFG offers free, experiential activities in STEM for K-8 girls; junior mentoring and leadership experiences for high school girls; and adult mentoring and role modeling by committed women with STEM careers. You can support SCFG through donations and volunteering.

Science Club for Girls will celebrate its 25th anniversary Catalyst Awards online on October 1, 6PM-6:30PM (pre-show at 5:45PM). The event is free, and donations are appreciated. SCFG excels at fostering excitement, confidence, and literacy in STEM for girls and young women from underrepresented communities. It offers free, experiential activities in STEM for K-8 girls; junior mentoring and leadership experiences for high school girls; and adult mentoring and role modeling by committed women with STEM careers. This year, SCFG has 60 mentors and 250 girl participating — 75% from underrepresented communities. From past results, over 90% will likely attend college and over 50% will major in STEM. In this 30-minute online event, you can learn a lot about what SCFG does in its in-person and virtual programs. Among this year’s award recipients are Catalyst Award winners Kaelyn Brown and Ashley Cooper, who are juniors at Harvard majoring in Neuroscience and co-directing Harvard’s SCFG Mentor Chapter. To become a sponsor of SCFG’s activities, contact Lucy Sweeney at lsweeney@scienceclubforgirls.org.

Nominations are open until October 1 for several awards for science teachers from the Massachusetts Association of Science Teachers (MAST):

• 14 county-level science educator awards
• 1 award for an exemplary new teacher
• 1 award for a distinguished “friend of science” working with educators
• 1 award for a K-8 teacher who is inspirational in environmental education

Anyone may submit a nomination by completing this online form. All nominees will be notified of their nominations, and awards will be presented at the MAST Annual Conference.  For more information, contact Laura Carlin at awards@massscienceteach.org.

Science Club for Girls fosters excitement, confidence, and literacy in STEM for girls and young women from underrepresented communities. SCFG offers free, experiential activities in STEM for K-8 girls; junior mentoring and leadership experiences for high school girls; and adult mentoring and role modeling by committed women with STEM careers. This non-profit is worthy of your support, and you can donate here.

Whether or not you have been away for part of the summer, you can always catch up at NewtonSTEM.org.  Events are usually posted as early as possible, and in general, posts are not repeated for the same event.  This means that events can be “lost in the shuffle” if they were posted with a lot of lead time.  The NewtonSTEM weekly newsletter includes all new posts written in the previous week, but it does not include all posts relevant to the upcoming week.  In order to keep current on upcoming events, you may want to:

• Review the “Earlier Announcements” list at the end of each newsletter.
• Review the NewtonSTEM calendar for upcoming events.  (The description of each event includes a link to the NewtonSTEM post about it.)
• Use the Search box in the right-hand column of the NewtonSTEM site.
• Click on Categories of interest in the list in the right-hand column of the site.

If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, please write to info@newtonstem.org.

Each year the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs recognizes individuals and groups with awards for excellence in environmental or energy education. Nominations of school programs, teachers, and students will be accepted until March 30. Winners will be notified in April and invited to an award ceremony at the State House.

Maria Popova’s Brainpickings blog presents her picks for her seven favorite science books of 2017.

Newton South HS’s Marine Biology students are responding to the current hurricane-induced public health crises in Puerto Rico by raising funds to purchase much needed water filters for affected communities there.  Donations by check (made out to “Newton South High School” with “PRWaterFilters” in the memo line) may be delivered to any NSHS house office or advisory teacher or mailed to NSHS Water Filters for Puerto Rico, 140 Brandeis Rd, Newton, MA 02459.

Following on her recent blog post about STEM-related holiday gift ideas, Boston Tech Mom has written about STEM gift recommendations from Project Lead The Way.