Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education took center stage in Washington D.C. this week, as President Barack Obama and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) met to hear presentations on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, the role of science and technology in foreign policy and development assistance, and discuss its other activities. An webcast archive of the meeting can be accessed on the PCAST site.

Below are quick summaries from two interesting STEM related postings on the White House blog.

Women Use Science, Engineering, to Pierce Vitreous Ceiling

The effort to attract and retain more girls and women to careers in science, math, and engineering is still a struggle. That’s why the Obama administration is pursuing a number of strategies aimed at getting more women to join the scientific ranks in the years and decades ahead.

Before this year only twelve women had won science Nobels in the more than century-long history of the prizes, compared to 523 men. For the first time ever, three women won scientific Nobels—Carol W. Greider and Elizabeth H. Blackburn, in physiology or medicine, and Ada E. Yonath in chemistry. That means this year’s female surge instantly raised the grand total of female science Nobel Prize winners by a whopping 25 percent. Talk about bending the curve! Read the rest of the article here

Science, Math Get Honors in the Classroom

The Obama administration has pursued an array of approaches to bolstering science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education (also known as “STEM ed”). These have ranged from formal federal grant programs such as Race to the Top, which is providing competitive grants to states that pump up the innovation in their academic programs, to events such as Astronomy Night on the White House lawn—the historic educational fest earlier this month that brought 150 local middle schoolers onto the South Lawn after sunset, where NASA astronomers and others pointed dozens of telescopes at the Moon, Saturn and its moons, and the furthest reaches of the universe.

Science and technology are responsible for a very large portion of this nation’s economic growth over the past 50 years. And scientists and engineers today are in the best position to solve many of the most pressing challenges facing the nation and the world, including energy shortages, climate change, inadequate healthcare, and poor nutrition. Read the rest of the article here

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