President Obama Hosts White House Science Fair

Today, President Obama hosted the White House Science Fair, bringing students from all across the country to demonstrate a wide variety of science interests and knowledge in our national schools.

Team Rocket (All-girl) from Maryland

Innovative students representing 30 states will display their ideas and inventions for the President and the wider viewing public. If you'd like a complete list of presenters, here you go.

President Obama also released significant details outlining several new education initiatives today. Not all of them will be presented here, and I will refer readers to the full White House press release.

The initiatives present continued funding, enhanced funding, or new plans to augment science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Some of the new STEM goals include:

• STEM Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) grants.
• Nationwide effort to engage Hispanic youth in STEM.
• Global initiative to connect STEM students from around the world.
• Expansion of STEM-based AmeriCorps.
• Partnership with NASA and Khan Academy to provide free, online STEM education.
• ESRI to provide ArcGIS Online for Education accounts to every K-12 school in the United States.

The President has also issued a "Call To Action" to all existing business partners, including Time/Warner, the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), and the newly established White House Maker Corps.

For more details, please check the White House press release here.