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Exclusive Interview:Nicholas Horbaczewski

DRL

New World Record

M A G I N E

What will define you? Your degree or your career profession?The majority of American college grad-uates, only 30% of the U.S. population, will have an average of three different careers in their lifetime...not usually associated with their initial degree. I myself am one of those. (http://www.politifact.com)

That being said, how are we defined?A few simple questions to consider:

- If I have a degree in economics, but work full-time as an insurance agent, are you an economist or an insurance agent?

- If I have a degree in Mathematics, but work as an engineering consultant, are you a mathematician, or an engineer?

- If I have a degree in biology but work full-time as an auto mechanic, are you a biologist or a mechanic?

Every career uses STEM skills.

Dolph Lundgren -Well known actor and tough guy,He’s got a genius-level IQ of 160 and a master’s in chemical engineering.Is he a chemical engineer or actor?

Kenny Chesney -The country music heartthrob holds a bachelor’s degree in advertising.

Lisa Kudrow -The actress has a bachelor’s degree in psychobiology from Vassar College.

Cindy Crawford - Degree in Chemical Engineering.

Gerard Butler - A law degree from Glasgow University.

Harrison Ford - Philosophy degree.

Ken Jeong - (The Hangover)M.D. Degree in medicine. “Dr. Ken”.

John Legend - English Degree, Univer-sity of Pennsylvania.

The list of famous examples continues and is quite long. Should you go to college? If you can...absolutely. Does it define you? You must decide.

Whatever makes you curious and drives your passion....go there.

Use STEM Magazine in class. Use the Smartboard. Share the link.

Each issue is appropriate for all grades and all teachers in all subjects.

Curiosity and learning are ageless.

Please enjoy this issue. You have unlimited distribution so your students and their families may enjoy it too.

The Jobs of Tomorrow / By Laron Walker, CEO of MyStemKits

Your Climate Change Story / By Erin Twamley and Joshua Sneideman

Interest in Science is Contagious / by Florida International University

Stoked for Science / by Christina Soontornvat

Nicholas Horbaczewski / By Wayne Carley

We believe that the key to success in seeing higher graduation rates, improved testing results, student inspiration, creativity, excitement and career satisfaction rests in the hands of the teacher. The example and inspi-ration of individual educators carries tremendous weight on a daily basis, greatly impacting the quality and effec-tiveness of the classroom environment.

Our mission: Encourage curiosity, investigation, inspiration, creativity, and innovation; the foundations of every career passion.

Wayne CarleyPublisherSTEM MagazineSTEM for Women MagazineSTEAM MagazineSTEM Magazine CanadaCTIM Revista (Spanish version)www.stemmagazine.com478.319.7177

STEM Magazine is a non-profit monthly education publication for educators,students, and their parents.

Read monthly in 67 countries, STEM Magazines strive to encourage the educator to better understand the importance of STEM skills, their use in every school subject, the need and ease of integration into curriculum and the urgency for students to embrace STEM.

To find out more, simply send your E-mail request to:

wayne@stemmagazine.com

Nicholas Horbaczewski An exclusive interview with

by Wayne Carley

Founder and CEO of -

the global

Nicholas: “The fact that technolog-ical innovations can transform sports and create new ways for people to ex-perience media and entertainment is fascinating to me – which is why it’s been incredibly exciting to lead DRL.

We’re building an entirely new sport that’s engineered by expertly hand- crafted racing drones while changing the way fans consume sports media.

During DRL races, elite pilots fly high-speed quadcopters through the most complex racecourses in iconic venues as dozens of action cams on the drones and throughout the courses capture the thrill. I’m really proud of our world class engineers and media team’s pro-duction innovation who are enabling us to blend the digital and physical worlds in a way no eSport or tradition-al racing league can match.

Drone Racing League

Plus, as we’re a tech company at our core, we feel lucky that we get to spend our days innovating - whether it’s building the fastest racing drone on the planet (it was an amazing day when our DRL RacerX set the Guinness World Record for fastest battery-pow-ered remote controlled quadcopter at 165.3 mph, with a top speed of 179.6 mph!) or launching our true to life FPV (First Person View) racing sim-ulator, High Voltage, with real world physics and maps, built and designed to help aspiring pilots learn how to fly.

Before my previous job as the CRO of Tough Mudder, I developed an interest in multi-copters while serving as the Chief Information Officer of ADS, a $1.5 billion dollar distributor of advanced hardware to the US govern-ment.

As I had also co-founded Leeden Me-dia, an entertainment company for feature-length independent films, I merged my love of production and interest in drones at DRL.”

“...fastest racing drone on the planet...

179.6 miles per hour”

What sparked your curiosity?

Nicholas: ”I have always been drawn to action sports and incredible video content, and FPV racing perfect-ly combines these two passions.

In 2015, I met Ryan Gury, our Director of Product, and he introduced me to FPV racing in during a hobbyist drone race in a parking lot in Long Island. Ryan gave me a pair of FPV goggles to put on and watch the live feed as the drone was speeding around the field,

over trees and in tight proximity to the other racers. It was exhilarating and I felt the same rush I’ve had from other action sports like sky diving or street luge. The drones, the tech, the three-dimensional racing and the skill of the pilots immediately resonated with me and I knew it had the potential to be something larger in scale and quality.”

Racer 3

Are you hands on Nicholas?

“Building, testing and designing racing drones is our day to day lives. If it’s creating a ‘drag-car’ type configura-tion to set a 180mph speed record, or working on the next iteration of our 600 drone fleet for professional racing, we are constantly developing flying machines that push the boundaries of what’s possible.

As far as “imagination to creation”, it’s fulfilling to create a machine that flies at high speeds, nothing else in the world can navigate a 3D space like a racing drone. When you pilot a drone through video goggles, the immersive

feeling tricks your body into believing that you are actually on board the craft. And when things go wrong – either crashing into the ground or exploding at 160mph in the air, it can be pretty intense.”

Career opportunities?

“There are endless career opportuni-ties. From engineering and designing (problem solving) to piloting

(technology) and marketing, racing drones are helping to create new jobs, and at DRL, we’re always on the look out for great talent.”

- Electrical Engineering- Software Engineering- Hardware Engineering- Chemical (composites) Engineering > battery technologies

Public Response?

We’ve been thrilled with the response.

During our 2016 Season, more than 33 million fans tuned in across 40 countries around the world, and we’re proud that over 70 million people have viewed our content digitally.

We just wrapped our 2017 season, which aired on ESPN, Sky Sports, ProSiebenSat.1, Disney XD and OSN in 75 countries, engaging millions of fans across the globe – many of whom would ping us on social media saying things like “Stop what you’re doing. Drone racing is on @ESPN and it’s INCREDIBLE.”

“In terms of attendance, we hosted our first spectator event during the 2017 Allianz World Championship finale race in London’s Alexandra Palace, where 1,500 people cheered, oo-ed and ahh-ed as 90mph-flying drones whizzed by. They fans loved how fun it was to watch such a thrilling and fiercely competitive race, and we’re excited to continue activating more live events.”

Safety?

“Safety is absolutely critical. As the sport of FPV grows and drones become increasingly commonplace, the indus-try depends on delivering safe events and guidelines for beginners to get involved.

DRL has conducted more than a dozen professional drone races since launch-ing in January 2016. In that time, we have raced in museums, royal palaces, NFL stadiums, historical landmarks, an abandoned power plant and one-of-a-kind venues in the US, UK and Germany.

Our Operations and Media teams have thousands of hours of live event experi-ence, and DRL is the world’s only insured, professional drone racing organization. We work closely with a range of part-ners and experts to innovate the races, including our title sponsor Allianz, and organizations like the FAA, CAA, and the White House Office of Science and Tech-nology. Details on these partnerships can be found here: The White House Office of Science and Technology and The Official Drone Racing Safety Website.

In addition to creating safe races and the world’s greatest three-dimensional race-tracks, DRL is constantly innovating the live audience experience. It’s a race that lends itself perfectly to live audiences, and DRL will continue to blur the line between spectators and professional pilots.”

Batteries life?

“As of this moment, high discharge Lithium Polymer cells are used for maximum power. We hope to see innovation from solid state lithium technologies, they are safer and can potentially provide a lot more dis-charge.”

Women?

“Drone racing brings diverse pilots, men and women of all ages and back-grounds. We want to encourage elite women pilots to try out for DRL and join the league. Opportunities are wide open.”

Unexpected challenges?

Before we launched DRL, we assumed our big challenge would be things like judging and scoring as we were build-ing an entirely new sport. We thought that building the drones would be easy, given that dozens of vendors and experts recommended circuit boards, flight controllers, and other parts, promising they’d be silver bullets.

However, after spending months con-ducting flight tests with these manufac-tured-drones and seeing them barely lift off or stay mid-air for a second before crashing, we learned that we had to build the drones from scratch. This was by far our most unexpected challenge, but today, we hand-build all DRL racing drones in-house.

DRL has aggressive ambitions to con-tinue innovating the sport as we grow and introduce the sport and futurist content to new fans around the world. A few key areas of focus for our team include:

Participation - DRL is constantly on the lookout for new, superior FPV tal-ent from the drone racing community. Our pilot roster will continue to grow with us, and we aim to help develop the careers of full-time, professional pilots.

Courses - We recently aired the 2017 DRL Allianz World Championship, which took place in London’s Alexan-dra Palace, and we’re excited to con-tinue bringing races to more visually enthralling and iconic venues across the world.

Broadcasting – In the past year, we partnered with ESPN in North and South America, Sky in the UK and Ita-ly, Prosieben in the DACH region, and recently expanded to OSN in the Mid-dle East and North Africa, and Disney XD. Our goal is to continue growing our fan base and audience to bring DRL to the international community.

Partnerships – We recently announced DRL’s title sponsorship with insurance giant Allianz for the 2017 season, the Allianz World Cham-pionship, which includes all six of our professional races. We also partnered with Bud Light around the launch of our drone racing simulator, Toy State for our new toy-racing drone, the Nik-ko Air DRL Drone that will hit retail shelves in August, and announced new partnerships with some of the best brands in the world, including Amazon Prime Video, Swatch, FORTO Coffee

Shots, and the U.S. Force. We’re excited to continue additional partnership con-versations with brands that align with our goals and standards.

Technology – We recently announced the DRL Racer3, which serves as the backbone for the sport of the future – flown by elite pilots throughout the 2017 season. It features a number of improvements from the Racer2, and our brilliant engineers are always developing ways to make our drones faster, lighter and more agile. We look forward to continue innovat-ing and developing future iterations of DRL drones to come, as well as perhaps setting new Guinness World Records like we did with our RacerX.

Nicholas: “The future of technol-ogy enabled sports has the incredible potential to capture the imaginations of new audiences and fans around the world. DRL is working tirelessly to combine the thrill of pod-racing from Star Wars with the real world adren-aline of Formula 1 and there are no limits to the technology, the 3D cours-es and the future of the sport.

“For anyone looking to learn how to fly, we recommend downloading our free true-to-life simulator, High Voltage, to get the hang of racing across real DRL course maps. Then, start training with our brand new model drone, the NikkoAir DRL Drone and FPV headset, available at Target.

Designed for pilots of all skill levels with three variable flight modes, mul-tiple speed settings, and 16 one touch stunts, this racing drone can help beginners turn into DRL pros in no time.”

Drone racing is a real life video game and we can’t wait for the rest of the world to experience the skill, the speed and the rush of FPV flight.”

Stoked for Science: Why students need to connect to STEM emotionally

By Christina Soontornvat

Stoked for Science: Why students need to connect to STEM emotionally

By Christina Soontornvat

Do a quick search on Indeed, SmartRecruiters, or LinkedIn and you’ll see that jobs in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) are in hot demand. By 2020, STEM jobs are expected to grow by 18.7%, com-pared to 14.3% for all fields.(National Bureau of Labor Statistics, https://www.nsf.gov/nsb/sei/edTool/data/workforce-03.html) Despite the high need and high pay-checks, these jobs continue to go unfilled. The dropout rate for STEM bachelors-degree programs is about 50%. Even students who “do well” in STEM, leave it behind. Nearly a third of high-performing students transfer out of STEM majors (National Center for Education Statistics). https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/2014001rev.pdf

Why are young people electing to miss out on careers with such great job se-curity and benefits? For industry and government, this is – literally – the billion-dollar question.

The first answer that usually comes up is that students leave the STEM pipe-line because they’re unprepared aca-demically. Over the years money, time, and human energy have been poured into efforts to increase academic rig-or and “hold schools accountable” for their students’ math and science achievement.

In other words, American youth are spending more time than ever before sitting at their desks, taking tests.

Has it worked?

The US continues to rank somewhere around the middle on international math and science scores (Pew Research Center, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-in-ternationally-math-science/ ). And at what cost? In the name of academic rigor, schools have increasingly had their budgets whittled away, until edu-cators must choose between providing essential services to their students, or providing “extra-curricular” activities, such as taking them on field trips.

Schools are crucial to developing a strong STEM workforce. Quality teach-ers and instruction are undoubtedly key variables that affect a student’s path in STEM.

But I would also argue that too often we ignore the importance of making an emotional connection to STEM. Inter-est, excitement, and attitudes are much harder to measure on a multiple-choice test, but much better at predicting a person’s life trajectory. Think about your own career path.

Why do you do what you do?

If you’re one of the lucky ones, your work fulfills you. It makes you feel good. Today’s youth are no different. In fact, Millennials report that the number one thing they seek in a career is a sense of purpose (Gallup, http://www.gallup.com/reports/189830/mil-lennials-work-live.aspx). STEM offers opportunities to make a difference and do work that is rewarding and excit-ing. The problem is that we don’t give young people enough chances to discover this.

If we want more students to pursue STEM, we have to go beyond equip-ping them with math skills and science facts. Students need to experience science, not just read about it. When we began developing the STEM Field Trip program for iFLY Indoor Skydiving, we wanted the curriculum to be chock-full of meaty content. And it is: students learn about gravity, velocity, and acceleration; they conduct experiments, and derive equations. But our number one goal for the program is that students see STEM in action, and that they leave completely stoked about it.

Can you measure the level of “stoke” on a test? Maybe, and actually we are cur-rently working with university researchers on ways to do just that. Personally, I know that you can feel how pumped students are about learn-ing science when you’re in our build-ing, and it’s an incredibly powerful thing to witness.

Our curriculum provides students and educators a first-hand look at the key technologies we use today to make wind tunnels fast enough for true sky-diving, safe enough for families and energy-efficient enough to be afford-able entertainment. These include the high efficiency turning vanes at each corner of the air flow path, the cool-ing system that removes heat from the airflow via chilled water pumping through the turning vanes.

These out-of-the-classroom experienc-es give students the chance to get close to STEM, pursue their own questions and form an emotional connection to what they’re learning. And yes, equity and access are issues we must face

head on if we are going to develop the diverse STEM workforce this country needs. All students must have oppor-tunities to spool DNA in a lab, or tin-ker with electronics, or experience the physics of indoor skydiving. If not, the thousands of STEM jobs listed on recruiting sites will continue to go unfilled. STEM education must not become a mono-culture consisting only of classroom instruction. In orderfor students to thrive, they need to grow up in a rich ecosystem of learning opportunities. Field trips, afterschool programs, internships, summer camps, and clubs are all vital parts of that eco-system.

Telling Your Climate Change Story

By Erin Twamley and Joshua Sneideman For more than 200 years, scientists

have been observing, measuring, and analyzing information about our plan-et’s climate. Studies show that the earth is in constant transition and humans have an effect on what happens. In Climate Change: Discover How It Impacts Spaceship Earth, young read-ers examine real studies concerning planetary science, Arctic ice bubbles, and migratory patterns. Kids explore the history of human impact from the Industrial Revolution to our modern- day technology, as well as the innova-tions underway around the world to address global climate change.

The idea of climate change can be scary, but every one of us has the ability to make a difference.

COP21 is a fairly simple concept and can be explained like so: Countries from all over the world are going to meet up in Paris at the end of this month and try to decide the best way to keep the world from getting any hotter.

COP21 just ending and the first ever Global Climate deal the time to #ActOnClimate is now. There are over 200 World Leaders, including oil rich countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia all agreeing to #ActOnClimate for a better future. The world’s richest people led by Bill Gates are agreeing to invest billions of their own capital into renew-able technologies in an endeavor called the Breakthrough Energy Coalition.

Around the world, nearly 100 billion dollars are being invested by the Green Climate Fund, (http://www.greencli-mate.fund/contributions/pledge-track-er) a group of 100 countries including the two biggest carbon emitters in the world, (USA and China) pledging to make drastic greenhouse gas reduc-tions by 2030. All of these actions are helping us to reduce our fossil fuel consumption and carbon future.

Now, what the world needs more than ever is individuals to #ActOnClimate. Why? Because individual acts of green can add up to a powerful change. We must let our voices echo. Here are 5 tips to help tell your climate change story. Join the movement. Your voice is important.

1. Use stories about innovation to start a positive climate change conversation. Have you ever seen an invention that just blew your mind? Something so cool and futuristic it made you go wow. Share that with others. Was it an elec-tric car or a massive wind farm? The inventions we see on TV, movies or in

impacted today. See for yourself that climate change is happening now. It is important to read and learn about what communities are doing from Brazil to Norway or even China on climate change.

4. #Youth4Climate. Join the movement online (with permission of an adult of course!). Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are all good places to en-gage with youth about climate change. Make sure to keep it positive and use hashtags like:#Youth4Climate #climat-echange #cop21 #globalwarming #pari-sagreement.

5. Act Local. It is a big world out there. But what you do in your home, school or community can make a difference. Walk or ride your bike to school (with permission of an adult of course!). Do an energy survey in your school or home to find out how much you are actually using and find ways to lower it.

Erin Twamley and Joshua Sneideman are educators and authors of two STEM books for middle school students, Climate Change: Discover How It Impact Spaceship Earth and Renewable Energy - Discover the Fuel of the Future. Josh was an Albert Einstein Distin-guished Educator Fellow at the U.S. Depart-ment of Energy and has 10 years experience as a middle school science teacher. Erin has led energy literacy and STEM efforts for govern-ment agencies and loves to travel the world and currently lives in Seoul, South Korea.

everyday life are helping to change our planet.

2. Take a snapshot. Show people how climate change is impacting you, your family, friends or even community. Photos can often send a quick and

powerful message. Make sure you to capture positive images -- like those awesome inventions you see.

3. Read other perspectives. Climate change impacts communities around the world. But how it impacts us may look different. Look for areas that are

“Interest in Science is Contagious” Part 1 of 2

Over the past several years, there has been considerable national attention given to increasing the talent pool in STEM (science, technology, engineer-ing, and mathematics) to address the growing concerns of sustainability, maintaining America’s competitiveness in the global economy, and ensuring access to highly-paid, highly-rewarding fields for all students.

Recent studies indicate that many capable high school students are opting out of STEM careers in favor of other preferences and that the underrepre-sentation of women and marginalized racial/ethnic groups in STEM jobs is still a major concern. One report also estimates that STEM jobs will grow as a fraction of the labor market and that these jobs will increasingly require bachelor’s degrees in STEM.

Thus, there continues to be a need to attract greater numbers of students to

STEM careers to ensure economic and social equity as well as to maximize the potential for STEM innovation. This study focuses on how classroom peers can affect these choices for students, including those students who were not previously interested in STEM.

The focus on classroom environments is particularly important given the shifting emphasis on reform-based ac-tive learning in undergraduate STEM courses. Although strong evidence exists for the advantage of these learn-ing environments for student perfor-mance, there is little understanding of how classrooms that incorporate active learning affect STEM career intentions for general populations of students.

Some might assume that with higher performance levels, increases in career interest will automatically follow, but this is not necessarily the case. For example, active learning in introduc-tory physics courses has been found to show larger performance gains than traditional lecture courses but also larger drops in attitudes/interest. In addition, being able to perform well in courses does not necessarily equate to interest in the subject matter or vice versa, particularly for underrepresent-ed groups in STEM. This fact warrants focused research on how features of classroom environments influence the development of STEM interests,

because all students need to have “widespread opportunity to engage in authentic, inspiring STEM learning”.

STEM educators are often concerned that they only reach the few select students who they interact with indi-vidually and do not reach most of the students in their classes. A promising feature of active learning environments is that they can promote a more com-munal approach to learning, where students no longer need to rely sole-ly on their instructor but can rely on each other, at least in part, to motivate and facilitate learning. Although there has been research on the effect of a few peers (for example, group/team members) on students’ educational outcomes, the collective effect of peers in science classroom environments has largely been unstudied using quanti-tative methods. However, qualitative research has demonstrated the ways in which peers in a classroom setting can facilitate or inhibit students’ identifying with science.

Furthermore, identifying with science is highly predictive of science career intentions. “The practices of the sci-ence classroom or the peer culture as informed by dominant norms and routines position youth in particular ways” that have implications for their choice of STEM.

Other research has shown that present-ing oneself to others as identifying with science can be “othering,” making one feel different from one’s peer group.

Fig. 1 / Comparing interest quorum groups on STEM career choice.

Effect of interest quorums on STEM career intentions

Here, we hypothesized that students who perceive a high level of interest among their peers in science classes will be more likely to intend on pursu-ing STEM careers. Similar to quorum sensing in biological systems, in which individual organisms respond to stim-ulus from the entire population (based on threshold density levels), we posit-ed an analogical system in which stu-dents respond to high levels of emotion among others by coordinating their emotions in response. This transfer of emotion has been referred to as emo-tional contagion; humans have been found to “readily ‘catch’ the emotions of others”.

However, we do not treat emotional contagion as if it is binary, that is, there are different degrees to which emotion can be communicated that are depen-dent on the context and other variables in the system.

Work on emotional contagion has ex-amined how emotions are transferred between people, with a focus on the process by which this happens. For example, individuals mimic the expres-sions and actions of others (for exam-ple, smile when others smile), which produces feedback on their own emo-tional state and results in a contagion of emotion.

Although the evidence for emotional contagion has appeared in psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and history, it has not been widely applied to class-room contexts within STEM educa-tion. One study examined interaction rituals in a science class, which were characterized by a synchrony among participants, including mutual focus and coordinated utterances, gestures, gaze direction, and movements. These interaction rituals led to higher levels of positive emotional response and en-gagement within the group. However, it is unclear how this heightened emo-tion within a class might affect future outcomes such as career choices. Our study offers evidence in this regard.

to the importance of group consensus: “Collectively, the theory and evidence point toward a new theory—group-based contagion—in which students benefit from advantaged peers mainlywhen those peers are in the same group”.

Here, we examine how perceptions about peers’ science interest within science classes are related to students’ intention for pursuing a STEM career. The focus on perceptions of students’ peer groups within classes has implica-tions for understanding classroom en-vironments and the effect of emotional contagion on a potentially positive outcome—STEM career intentions.

Our study surveyed a nationally rep-resentative population of college stu-dents, including those who were in-terested in STEM and those who were not. We collected data from students in mandatory introductory English courses at 50 randomly selected col-leges and universities across the United States. The survey asked participants to report their likelihood of pursuing a STEM career as well as demographic, background, and academic informa-tion. In addition, participants reported how interested their peers were in the content/topics during their last high school biology, chemistry, and physics courses.

Focusing on emotional contagion be-tween adolescents may be particularly important because both neurological and social research point to adolescent development being more susceptible to peer influence. However, much of the work on peer contagion in chil-dren and adolescents has focused on negative effects, such as aggressive and antisocial behaviors as well as depres-sive emotions. Also emerging from this work is the importance of perceiving a consensus among peers, even when this perception may be false.

A review of the influence of peers on students’ educational outcomes points

We defined high levels of reported interest as an interest quorum, an anal-ogy to a density level of peers with an interest (stimulus). We hypothesized that individuals who experienced an interest quorum in their biology, chemistry, or physics classes would be more likely to choose a STEM career or a career in the discipline in which they experienced the quorum.

However, there were several competing hypotheses that needed to be account-ed for. In addition, we accounted for the effect of teaching quality. We con-sidered the possibility that rather than being a function of the level of interest among classmates, classes with a high level of interest had higher achieving, more interested students to begin with. To address these alternate hypotheses, we accounted for academic achieve-ment, family support for science and mathematics, and previous STEM career interests in middle school and high school as covariates.

The analysis also accounted for gen-der, because previous work has shown that female students are less interest-ed in the physical sciences and two of the subjects included in this study are physical sciences (chemistry and physics).

In addition, we accounted for the effect of teaching quality. However, we main-tained our hypothesis that peer

interest quorums in science classes have a positive effect on STEM and discipline-specific career intentions even after accounting for these covari-ates. Finally, we also tested the effect of interest quorums on course perfor-mance in the associated discipline.

Effect of interest quorums on STEM career intentions

We first tested whether the interest quorum groups (five levels of interest perceived among peers from not inter-ested to very interested: groups 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4) across all three subjects were significantly different in their STEM career intentions (Fig. 1, no covariates). As hypothesized, there was a signif-icant difference between the interest quorum groups on their STEM career intentions [analysis of variance (ANOVA), F4,2087 = 28.2, P < 0.0001].

Tukey post hoc tests (table S1) indi-cated that the highest interest quorum condition (group 4—other students “very interested”) was significantlyhigher than all the other quorum conditions (groups 0, 1, 2, and 3; P < 0.0001). The second highest interest quorum condition (group 3) also ex-hibited significantly higher likelihood of pursuing a STEM career than the two lowest conditions (groups 0 and 1; P < 0.0001 and P < 0.05, respectively).

The middle interest quorum condition (group 2) was significantly higher than the lowest (group 0; P < 0.0001). The two lowest interest quorum conditions (groups 0 and 1) were also significantly different from each other (P < 0.05). The only non-significant differences were between adjacent groups in the middle interest quorum range, that is, groups 1 and 2 (P = 0.78) and groups 2 and 3 (P = 0.20).

Student-reported likelihood of choos-ing a STEM career as a function of the highest interest quorum experienced in students’ last high school biology, chemistry, or physics class [from most students “Not at all interested” (group 0) to “Very interested” (group 4)].

Dark bars represent means without co-variates, and light bars represent means after controlling for covariates includ-ing gender, academic achievement, family support for science and math-ematics, and previous STEM career interests in middle school and high school. Error bars represent ±1 SE.

Effect sizes for the difference between groups were also calculated (table S1). A large effect size (mean difference, 34; Cohen’s d = 0.98) was observed for the difference between the highest (group 4) and the lowest (group 0) interest quorum condition.

Other large effect sizes were observed for differences between groups 4 and 1, groups 3 and 0, and groups 2 and 0 (mean differences, 21 to 24; Cohen’s d = 0.58 to 0.66). Medium effect sizes were observed for differences between groups 4 and 1, groups 3 and 0, and groups 2 and 0 (mean differences, 13 to 16; Cohen’s d = 0.39 to 0.47).

The overview of collected date will be continued next month as we continue to explore the interest levels of students and possible factors that influence the quorum results gathered.

Continued next month -

How STEM Helps Educate Kids for the Jobs Of

TomorrowBy Laron Walker, CEO of MyStemKits

How STEM Helps Educate Kids for the Jobs Of

Tomorrow

To understand the effects of STEM education we must first understand what STEM means. STEM education is curriculum based on educating students in the broad career categories of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

What makes STEM so special is that the curriculum allows the combina-tion of all subject categories in various settings and provides students insights that they can relate to real- world applications.

In 2016, over one million STEM relatedjobs remained unfilled. The answer to why is simple; although the jobs are available, there is a lack of trained professionals to fill the positions. The solution to this disconnection is STEM in early education. By using the teach-ing process of STEM education, we can equip youth with the skills and knowl-edge they need to be competitive in a technological future.

The process of teaching STEM edu-cation is simple yet structured. STEM education begins while kids are at a young age and is continued through progressive steps based on the student’s level of education.

Elementary School level

The elementary begins at the introduc-tion stage. At this level of education, the goal is to pique the interests of the students, bring awareness to the area of math, science, technology, and en-gineering. By introducing kids to these subjects at an early age, they gain the opportunity to develop interest in non-traditional fields.

Middle School level

In this stage, the elementary education is reinforced and the academic expec-tations for the specific fields become the focus. Students receive more de-tailed descriptions on STEM subjects, how to conceive solutions in their proj-ects, and educators help the students process the types of careers hold their interest based on the subjects they’ve learned.

High School level

In High School, students take their previous years of STEM education and show their understanding of STEM

education by applying and choosing the skills that would benefit best from the appropriate STEM lesson to real life scenarios.

This process can eliminate the lack of qualified talent for STEM fields. Unfor-tunately, cost is sometimes an issue and this is where we need more involve-ment from our business community. By adopting schools and assisting with funding programs that support STEM education, the school’s financial burden is lifted and would allow more schools to have the resources to provide STEM education to their students. The more schools involved, the further the ad-vancement of STEM education grows.

At MyStemKits, an Atlanta based 3D Stem production company, we strive to be a good example of what involve-ment from the business community can and should look like. Our com-munity involvement includes hosting STEM Immersion workshops for K-12 and partnering with local schools and nonprofits to assist in early education of STEM based curriculum’s.

Here are the current top 10 STEM jobs, their predicted job growth, and their top salaries according to a US News list published in 2016.

Career New jobs created by 2024 Top Salary

1. Statistician 10,100 $130,6302. Computer System Analyst 118,600 $135,4503. Software Developer 135,300 $153,7104. Mathematician 700 $167,2505. Financial Advisor 73,900 $187,2006. Actuary 4,400 $136,1307. IT Manager 53,700 $187,2008. Psychologist 32,500 $108,500 9. Web Developer 39,500 $116,62010. Operations Research Analyst 27,600 $132,500

STEM is more than our basic idea of science, technology, engineering and math subjects and contains a list of jobs that are not typically on young minds’ radars when focusing on a career path. Therefore, we must make sure that not only do we make STEM education affordable and accessible but that we expand the definition of STEM jobs to make them relateable to kids. (EX: A software developer to us is a gamer to them). Incorporating descriptive tech-niques will bridge the connection be-tween STEM education and the success of our kids.

So how does STEM help in preparing kids for the job market of tomorrow? STEM helps by giving them intricate insights into creation, how things progress from a simple idea into a functioning object or an active system. The interjection of STEM into a child’s education helps develop critical think-ing, promotes cognitive reasoning, and motivates creativity through curiosity. STEM exposes kids to possibilities far greater than they could imagine on their own and it provides a foundation upon which they can stand.

“Exposure to STEM careers of tomorrow”

The top jobs of tomorrow are addressed through STEM education today. By intro-ducing STEM education to kids, it affords them the opportunity to be successful in multiple areas of study without having to study them individually.

As the expectancy of instant gratifi-cation and instant solutions becomes more demanding, the advancement of technology and the fields associated will continue to grow. Exposing our youth to STEM education now will ensure that they are equipped with the skills and resources they need to com-pete for tomorrow’s STEM based occu-pations.

MyStemKits was created by a diverse group of educators, artists, technology specialists and businessmen leading the charge in the development of inno-vative 3D printing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) manipulatives for K-12 classrooms. Each product comes backed with vetted, interdisciplinary curriculum’s written by teachers and content-area experts.

Founded in 2015, MyStemKits’ mission was to create an affordable and inno-vative way to introduce young minds to math and science through hands-on experience. Through consistent discus-sions with the education system and their partnerships with Konica Minolta, Dremel, and Florida State University they have developed the largest library standards-driven manipulative kits and curriculum’s, with over 150+ manipu-latives, and 200+ lesson plans with no software installation and a one-click print process.

TECHSTEALTH TECHNOLOGY

Dr.Amir S. Gohardani Dr. Omid GohardaniSprings of Dreams Corporation, Orange County, California

TECHDr.Amir S. Gohardani Dr. Omid GohardaniSprings of Dreams Corporation, Orange County, California

Have you ever tried to imagine seeing something that is invisible? Whether you have played peek-a-boo as a child or dreamed about coming up with the potion that would make you invisible to others, invisibility is limited to ob-jects and light outside our visual spec-trum or blocked by something physi-cal. Invisible events constantly happen around us in our everyday lives, but are all these events really invisible? Or do we call them invisible only because we do not pay much attention to them, or simply do not know how to make them visible to us?

Heat from the sun, events in your body and radio waves are a few examples of real things we cannot usually see with-out specialized technology. Technology allows us to see additional light waves or the influence of radio waves. Medi-cal monitors and scanning instruments allow doctors to see inside your body to monitor blood flow, heart efficiency, disease, broken boned (X-rays) and more.

These are not invisible events, just not visible to our natural vision. By peek-ing into the unseen or invisible, it is sometimes possible to detect the visible and aerospace design and aerospace operations features many such examples.

In the early days of stealth technology, many popular science books and mag-azines presented stealth aircraft as invisible aircraft. In some ways, this description might be true if you look at a RADAR screen, but if you ever go to an air show and see a stealth aircraft fly, you would still be surprised that you are actually able to see the stealth aircraft with the naked eye. What is the advantage of invisible aircraft if you actually can see them?

In order for us to understand the se-crets behind stealth aircraft, the first thing we can conclude is that so far there has been no invention of invisible material for airframe structures.

In other words, don’t think along those lines that once a pilot sits in the cockpit of a stealth aircraft, he or she can push a button and make the aircraft vanish to the naked eye. Stealth aircraft are typically invisible to RADAR and the interest for stealth aircraft is primarily to monitor certain aerospace activities without being detected. This type of aerospace technology is ideal for national defense purposes.

But, how does stealth really work?

You might have wondered why RADAR is spelled in capital letters.

RADAR is spelled that way since it is an acronym. R.A.D.A.R. stands for RAdio Detecting And Ranging and is based on the use of radio waves. The first practical radar system was pro-duced in 1935 by the British physicist Sir Robert Watson-Watt, and by 1939 England had established a chain of radar stations along its south and east coasts to detect aggressors in the air or on the sea.

Whether it’s mounted on a plane, a ship, or anything else, a radar set needs the same basic set of components: something to generate radio waves, something to send them out into space, something to receive them, and some means of displaying information so the radar operator can quickly understand it.

The radio waves used by radar are pro-duced by a piece of equipment called a magnetron. Radio waves are similar to light waves: they travel at the same speed—but their waves are much lon-ger and have much lower frequencies.

Light waves have wavelengths of about 500 nanometers (500 billionths of a meter, which is about 100–200 times thinner than a human hair), whereas the radio waves used by radar typically range from about a few centimeters to a meter—the length of a finger to the length of your arm—or roughly a million times longer than light waves.

Both light and radio waves are part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which means they’re made up of fluctuating patterns of electrical and magnetic energy zapping through the air. The waves a magnetron produces are actu-ally microwaves, similar to the ones

generated by a microwave oven. The difference is that the magnetron in a radar has to send the waves many miles, instead of just a few inches, so it is much larger and more powerful.

Air traffic control uses RADAR tech-nology on daily basis to track aircraft in the air and on the ground. Riding on one of the three key purposes of RA-DAR, which are: to detect the presence of an object at distance or to detect the speed of an objective or to enable map-ping capabilities, the need for RADAR applications is indeed essential.

A typical RADAR antenna sends out electromagnetic waves. Once these sig-nals hit and are reflected by an object, or in this case an aircraft, the radar

antenna will measure the time it took for the reflection to arrive back to the antenna and subsequently reveal how far away the aircraft is from the antenna.

If we analyze a conventional shape or airframe of an airliner, we can easily deduce that the rounded shape of such an aircraft suits as a perfect RADAR re-flector and nearly always reflects some signals back to the RADAR antenna regardless of where it bounces off the aircraft.

In order to enable a stealth aircraft, we must trick the RADAR antenna to not see any reflections of the radio signals and one way of doing so is either to absorb the radio signals by the aircraft skin or to reflect them away from the RADAR equipment. When aeronautical engineers design stealth aircraft, they make sure that the airframe has very sharp edges and is made up of completely flat surfaces.

If the radio signals from the RADAR antenna are not reflected back to the RADAR equipment, RADAR will have no clue where the aircraft is, giving the impression of being invisible, or invisible to RADAR.

Learning points:

RADAR = RAdio Detecting And Ranging

Principles of Stealth Technology in Aeronautics

For more information and additional re-sources for learning please visit Learn-ing Corner at the Springs of Dreams Corporation Website:

www.springsofdreams.org/education.html

www.springsofdreams.org/education.html

Language Arts IS a S.T.E.M. Subject

Definition: Reading, spelling, literature, and composition that aim at developing the student’s comprehension and capacity for use of written and oral language.

It’s simply that “..comprehension and capacity...” that stretches across every subject your students will study from this day forward. Who would have thought that language arts could determine the futures of the kids fall-ing asleep halfway through class?

Technology – From scribbling on a rock to typing on our iPad, technology has been and will continue to be an in-tegral part of how we express ourselves and communicate. The technology of spell check is a life saver for a writer, and the access to every type of litera-ture through the net has brought learn-ing and access to new heights. Sorry to say, I don’t miss the library and the card catalogue, but I’m sure I would have done better in school with current technology resources.

Engineering – Once again the engi-neering method has a home here. The composition of a term paper is a series of problem solving challenges that take us from “Here is your assignment” to

the final spell checked version that most effectively completes the criteria of the assignment resulting in the best possible grade.

The value of reading, spelling, com-position, and communication easily translate into every career you can imagine. Doing them well is of greater benefit, naturally resulting in greater opportunities, salaries and other levels of success. The process of implement-ing the engineering method through the effective use of language arts skills can only result in better outcomes of problem solving regardless of the area of our life where the problem arises.

- Identify the problem

- Propose possible solutions

- Test those solutions for viability

- Evaluate the results of your testing

- Pick the best solution

- Re-evaluate the problem with your solution in place.

Every career requires Language Arts. Every career is a STEM career.

STEM Magazine is

Global