Obama Hosting Science Fair As Part of STEM Education Push

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President Obama today will yet again host an event at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to advance STEM education, this time with what’s being called the White House Science Fair.

The event, scheduled to begin at 11:35 a.m., will celebrate the winners of a broad range of student competitions in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. (And as someone who’s been on the receiving end of tons of materials about a dizzying array of competitions, trust me, there’s no shortage to choose from.)

I’m really struck by the extent to which Obama is using the bully pulpit to drum up interest and support for STEM education. I stand to be corrected, but can recall no other recent president doing so. To my knowledge, he’s hosted five White House events (including today’s) since October of last year, starting with an evening focused on astronomy that brought teachers, students, and telescopes to the White House lawn. The second was to announce the launch of the president’s Educate to Innovate campaign, a public-private initiative to advance STEM education.

The White House press release for today’s event indicates that Obama will view exhibits of the winning students’ work, then deliver remarks to an audience of students, science educators, and business leaders on the importance of STEM education to the nation’s economic future.

The event comes out of the so-called Educate to Innovate campaign Obama launched in November 2009 as a public-private partnership to advance STEM education. A key goal of that initiative is to inspire young people to excel in the STEM fields.

Obama said at the November 2009 announcement: “If you win the NCAA championship, you come to the White House. Well, if you’re a young person and you produce the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too.”

The STEM Advocate-in-Chief also will announce today that he’s going to make an appearance on the Dec. 8 episode of the Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters, a popular TV show that, according to the White House release, “uses science to determine the truth behind urban legends.”

Furthermore, Obama is expected to give a plug for the USA Science & Engineering Festival, which I blogged about last week. That two-week festival is to culminate with a two-day expo just a short walk from the White House on the National Mall. No word yet on whether Obama, or members of his family, will be heading over to check out the Oct. 23-24 expo.

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