The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Illinois), one of the leading science and engineering institutions in the United States, and nationally-recognized Science Olympiad have announced plans to establish a long-term partnership. Science Olympiad is a 27-year-old national science competition that focuses on student teams working together on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) challenges.
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A local young Tom-Edison-in-the-making with an inclination toward invention needs to look no further than the Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab. Located on the University of Illinois campus, this fabrication laboratory contains state-of-the-art, computer-controlled manufacturing tools designed to foster creativity and innovation in local inventors, both young and old. Would-be inventors can dream up a design, create it on a computer via easy-to-use design software, then use lab tools to create it. Another key feature is the Fab Lab network, an online community which allows local Lab users to present their problems and get advice from Fab Lab users around the world.
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This event which was held on May 13 at Champaign Central High School invited math students at Central High School and Edison Middle School in Champaign, along with families and friends, to compete in teams of five to eight to complete various tasks, such as rebuilding the ruins of Palenque using life-size Soma cubes, teamwork and mathematic principles. Each challenge station drew on a different theme and a different mathematical theory. Activities were slated for 6 - 8 p.m.
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Around 3000 STEM-inclined middle- and high-school students from around the country converged on the Illinois campus May 21–22, 2010 to participate in the National Science Olympiad Tournament.
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National Lab Day initiative, part of President Obama’s new Educate to Innovate Campaign, is more than a day. It’s a nationwide initiative to build local communities of support (hubs) that will foster ongoing collaborations among volunteers, students and educators.
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Both the Science Olympiad Illinois state tournament and the national tournament will be held at Illinois next spring. The state tournament is scheduled for April 10, 2010; next year's national tournament will be held on May 20–22, 2010.

The Bugscope project provides free interactive access to a scanning electron microscope (SEM) so that students anywhere in the world can explore the microscopic world of insects.
STORY: News-Gazette; link to News-Gazette slideshow

Meadow Jones, a GSLIS Fellow in Community Informatics who is interested in informal science education and the role of museums in supporting and enhancing science education, organized a series of events at the Orpheum Children's Science Museum in summer 2009 that featured a mystery mural: Dino Detective Days. Jones’ goal was “To facilitate scientific thinking through innovative and creative programming.”
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Tristesse Jones, a senior majoring in crop sciences and preparing to be a research biologist, followed the STEM education pipeline to the University of Illinois.
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LAS’ popular online program, Math Teacher Link, which has helped hundreds of instructors nationwide, is bringing math instruction into the computer era.
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Illinois’ new Pollinatarium is the first free-standing Discovery Science Center in the nation devoted to flowering plants and their pollinators.
STORY: News-Gazette slideshow: Life of a Beekeeper

Four Illinois food science and human nutrition students experienced their own shining moment when the children's snack food they had created reached the Final Four in a national product development competition. Their product, "Snow White's Apple Puffs," which provides a full serving of apple in a sweet, crunchy snack form, was recognized in the Nutritious Food for Kids category of Disney's Institute of Food Technologists Student Association's product development competition.
STORY: ACES News: U of I students reach Final Four in healthy food development competition

Study by University of Illinois math education expert Gloriana González indicates that using technology not only makes teaching high school geometry easier, but also empowers students to discover new mathematical ideas.
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The Information Trust Institute (ITI) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has received a $357,000 award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to create a “Research Experiences for Undergraduates” (REU) site.
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NSF-funded project funds examines practices of Hispanic-Serving Institutions with high numbers of Latino students receiving doctoral degrees in STEM fields. The researchers' goal was to identify and examine the practices of 25 colleges who produce a greater number of Latino STEM graduates than peer institutions with similar characteristics.
STORY: Inside Higher Ed website: Recalculating Latino STEM Success

Study finds that while female faculty members serving as role models attract women to fields with few women, a more useful policy to attract female student is to change social attitudes and remove stereotypes, such as, "Females are not as good as males in math."
STORY: Inside Higher Ed website: Role Models and Stereotypes

i>clicker, an innovative classroom technology invented by Illinois physics faculty, is continuing its successful trajectory in the commercial world.
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A solar-powered house designed by University of Illinois students took second place in a competition sponsored by the Department of Energy.
STORY: The Illinois News Bureau
STORY: Washington Post Video Gallery of Solar Decathlon competition
STORY: The News-Gazette.com

Today a group of organizations representing business and industry, large and small, announced they will join forces to address the growing challenges for America's future workforce. The Business and Industry STEM Coalition announced its commitment to doubling the number of graduates with bachelor's degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) to 400,000 from 200,000 by 2020.
STORY: WASHINGTON, March 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire: Nation's Employers Commit to Building a Stronger U.S. Workforce

Responding to a letter from the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) pledging to do more to improve U.S. competitiveness in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), President Obama announced a partnership between APLU and federal agencies. APLU pledged to increase the number of science/math teachers they train as part of the "Educate to Innovate" campaign.
STORY: The Chronicle of Higher Education website: Universities Pledge to Train Thousands More Math and Science Teachers by 2015

STORY: The White House website article: President Obama Launches "Educate to Innovate" Campaign for Excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (Stem) Education

What do African cowpea farmers, Indian street vendors, and Peruvian llama farmers all have in common? They will all be engaging in an applied STEM education project, benefitting from a new interactive, peer-reviewed, information-sharing website that disseminates educational materials designed to help subsistence farmers and small-scale entrepreneurs learn and adopt sustainable practices in different parts of the world. Currently being developed at Illinois, the Sustainable Development Virtual Knowledge Interface (SusDeViki), a “distributed knowledge” network, will collect, review, organize, and distribute educational materials that promote sustainable development, such as the above poster demonstrating how to kill insects without insecticides. SusDeViki is the brainchild of three Illinois educators involved in international projects working with aid organizations to develop and share agricultural and economic information with people around the world.

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Illinois has received a 5-year, $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to fund a national center and portal for professional and research ethics in science, mathematics and engineering. Providing information about ethics, research integrity, ethical challenges in practice, and ethics and compliance policies, the online center's resources will be available to teachers, students, researchers, administrators and other audiences.

STORY: Coordinated Science Lab: University of Illinois to Develop National Center for Ethics in Science, Mathematics and Engineering:
STORY: National Science Foundation: NSF Leads Effort to Make Ethics Resources Available to Researchers: