JOBSTEM Project Leader visits The New York Academy of Sciences
New York, USA – JOBSTEM
project leader, prof. dr. sc. Josip Burušić, met with dr. Kristian Breton, Director
of Education, and dr. Stephanie Wortel, Program Manager of Education, at the
New York Academy of Sciences, in April 2016.
The main goal of the meeting
was to get acquainted with each other's research activities and ongoing
projects, and discuss areas of mutual interest and potential cooperation in the
field of STEM education research. The possibility of future project collaboration
was agreed upon, with the Academy members showing great interest in becoming a
partner in future research and project activities in Croatia.
Solving the global STEM
crisis is outlined as one of Academy's main activities: it launched the Global
STEM Alliance in 2013, an international initiative which seeks to increase the
number and diversity of students in STEM education through various projects and
learning platforms, as well as narrow the existing skills gap between schools
and the workforce. Other STEM-related programs include the Junior Academy, a
global network connecting gifted science students with the best international
researchers.
Certain specific details
of the Academy's Afterschool STEM
Mentoring Program were also discussed at the meeting. This program, which
started in the Fall of 2010, brings graduate and postdoctoral students from universities
local to the Academy (NYC, Newark and Upstate New York) together with
under-served schools in the area to give hands-on mentoring to 4th through 8th
grade classrooms. The topics of the sessions range from genetics and space
science to environmental studies. So far, 11,750 middle-school students have
benefited from this program, with the positives going in the other
direction as well; by helping young up-and-coming scientists learn how to
efficiently communicate scientific insights and get first-hand experience in
teaching.
The New York Academy of
Sciences in one of the leading organizations advocating for scientific endeavors.
It currently has more than 20,000 members from 100 different countries, among
which both Nobel Prize winners and government leaders and postdoctoral
researchers and students can be found working together on the core mission of
the Academy – advancing scientific research and its impact on education and
policy to drive positive societal change. The Academy also publishes the Annals
of the New York Academy of Sciences, one of the most cited multidisciplinary scientific
journals in the world.
Find out more about the Academy in general on their website, take a look at what's new in the journal, or inspect the STEM-related programs on the Global STEM Alliance webpage.