Acevedo grew up on a dirt road in the desert of Las Cruces, New Mexico, the daughter of a Mexican-American father and a Mexican mother who spoke little English. They moved often and sometimes had to live with relatives because money was tight. But young Sylvia excelled in school, went to college and was one … Continue reading Gratitude and Rocket Science
Three key takeaways from the symposium: Students need computational thinking (CT) to succeed. YALSA 2018 Symposium attendees had an opportunity to experience CT in action in “It’s True: Computational Thinking and Libraries Are a Perfect Match,” an interactive session led by Marijke Visser, associate director and senior policy advocate for the American Library Association’s Public … Continue reading Focusing on Teen Needs
The library furnished students with kits that they used to gather soil samples around campus, which were then returned to NCSU’s biotechnology lab for extracting DNA to locate the “gold-pooping gene,” as Lewis calls it. They then took the samples with the most Delftia and sequenced a portion of the gold genes at the Genomic Sciences Laboratory. With … Continue reading Excited about Science
“We are all familiar with what happened in Flint,” said Cassandra Allen, outreach librarian at the National Library of Medicine. So what part can libraries, universities, and other organizations play in making sure people of all races, cultures, and income levels are treated fairly when it comes to environmental development, implementation, and policy? At “Environmental Justice … Continue reading The Path to Environmental Justice
Like many parents, I worry about how to keep my videogame-obsessed child from becoming a couch potato without spending a fortune on camps. Public libraries have been a reliable ally in the war on “summer slide,” the loss of academic gains made in the previous school year. This loss tends to hit children from lower-income … Continue reading Plan Now for a STEAM-y Summer
95 Percent of libraries that offer summer reading programs, according to the American Library Association’s 2014 Digital Inclusion Survey. 4-5 Number of books children should read over break to prevent “summer slide,” a loss in reading achievement experienced by young readers between school years, according to a 2004 Harvard study. Studies show children from low-income … Continue reading By the Numbers: Summer Reading
So what does science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education for our youngest learners look like? Librarians and early literacy experts explored that question at “STEM for Babies and Toddlers,” an Association for Library Service to Children–sponsored program at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference in New Orleans on June 23. “Science is a way … Continue reading STEM for Babies
“Eclipse fever has clutched Salem,” says Ann Scheppke, adult services librarian at Salem (Oreg.) Public Library (SPL). Residents of Salem, a city that sits in the path of totality—the geographical strip experiencing darkness caused by the moon casting its shadow on the Earth—and the 100,000 out-of-towners expected to visit will be among the first in … Continue reading Total Eclipse of the Library
Girls Who Code has seen exponential growth since its founding. To what do you attribute to the nonprofit’s success? We have this amazing, authentically girl-led movement. We started with 20 girls in 2012; now we’ve reached more than 40,000 girls in all 50 states through our summer immersion programs and after-school clubs. We’ve met girls … Continue reading Newsmaker: Reshma Saujani
“We’re missing out on women, and it wasn’t always this way,” speaker Reshma Saujani told attendees at the Opening Session of the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2017 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago on June 23. “It’s almost become fashionable for girls to say, I hate math, I hate science.” So what did Saujani, whose … Continue reading Why teaching girls to code will change the workforce … and the culture
Some of this year’s winners included: Organized College Planner (Zach Burke, Illinois’ 9th congressional district) keeps track of passwords, deadlines, and course application requirements. Election Connection (Santiago Torres, Christopher Leung, Christopher Jhaveri, and Jason Kwan, California’s 39th congressional district) provides information to help voters make more educated decisions about candidates and ballot propositions. STEMLink (Nikhil Sharma, … Continue reading Libraries in the #HouseofCode
But how are we doing? What is the state of inclusion in technology, and what work is left to do? Two panels at South by Southwest Interactive on March 11 in Austin, Texas, tackled some of these questions. Inclusion and funding “Inclusion and the Digital Neighborhood” panelists Kimberly Bryant, founder and executive director of Black Girls … Continue reading Closing Tech’s Diversity Gap
