Midwest Rural-Urban Girls Collaborative: Engaging Girls in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math Through Creative Collaboration Skip Navigation Links

Newsletter #3

May 1, 2006

MINI-GRANT DEADLINE EXTENDED UNTIL MAY 20, 2006;  Awards announced June 1, 2006. This mini-grant application is for projects to be done in the summer 2006 or in the fall 2006. In order to apply for a mini-grant of $1,000 at least two organizations which encourage STEM activities must be collaborating together. The two organizations must be registered in the MRU Program Guide. (www.missouristate.edu/mru) The short two pages that are required for the mini-grant proposal can be found at: http://www.missouristate.edu/mru/grants/

Please type your mini-grant proposal in Word first and save it. Then cut and paste your document to put your application on the web. Some people are getting an error message after typing the first page on the web. This may be because your computer time may be up for submitting the application and so the computer will give an error message. We are increasing the computer time for submitting the application. If you do get an error message, just e-mail your proposal to PaulaKemp@MissouriState.edu

Please note that after submitting your mini-grant proposal on the MRU website, you can edit the mini-grant proposal.

Even if you could not attend the April 1st conference, you are eligible to apply for a mini-grant. Rural teachers: You may want to take your students to visit a science museum, etc. in the city. The $1,000 could cover travel and motel expenses.

Please feel free to contact me with your comments and questions. Please feel free to give copies of this letter to your colleagues.

Dr. Paula Kemp
PaulaKemp@MissouriState.edu
Principal Investigator, MRU Project (supported by National Science Foundation)
Missouri State University

INFORMATION SUBMITTED BY MRU ORGANIZATIONS:

BOEING TOURS (from Jackie Stropes):

The following URLs will give you descriptions and instructions for tours for the Prologue Room (Aviation history museum).

An article from last summer....
The Boeing James S. McDonnell Prologue Room, a unique collection of aviation history, opened to the public May 31.

The exhibit, housed in the company's Integrated Defense Systems headquarters building in Berkeley, Mo., chronicles a century of aviation milestones. The magic of flight, from biplanes to monoplanes and piston engines to jets and spacecraft, is brought to life through hundreds of scale models, photographs, paintings and artifacts.

Displays document the development of commercial and military aviation, and include large-scale models of the F-15 Eagle, the F/A-18 Super Hornet, AH-64 Apache helicopter and Air Force One. Models of Boeing's fleet of commercial jetliners also are displayed alongside a full-size airliner cockpit.

Full-size mockups of the Mercury and Gemini space capsules that carried the first Americans into space dramatize the vital role St. Louis played in the early days of America's space program. Models of Skylab, America's first orbiting laboratory, the Space Shuttle Orbiter and a detailed scale model of the International Space Station also are on display.

The Prologue Room is located in Building 100 at the corner of McDonnell Boulevard and Airport Road, adjacent to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. The exhibit is open to the public free of charge from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday, through Sept. 3. It is closed on Sundays and on July 4. Reservations are required. Groups of 10 or more may request a guided tour by calling 314-232-6896 at least two weeks in advance. The facility is wheelchair accessible. (June 1, 2005)

E-MENTORING (from Dorothy Witherspoon):

For more information about this program and to send Dorothy Witherspoon an e-mail, please go to the MRU website, go to Program Directory and then scroll down until you find information about the Women’s Bureau.

Dorothy Witherspoon,
Women’ Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor
Kansas City, MO 64105

The Women's Bureau developed the concept for the E-mentoring demonstration project and use partner organizations to recruit students to participate and actually implement the program. Typically our partners have been schools, faith-based organizations, or other groups that serve girls. The approaches the partners use vary depending on resources.

The Washington High School partner is in Kansas City, KS and the teacher uses the GEM-Nursing E-mentoring project to enhance the learning of students she has in a "health careers learning community". The teacher takes her students to a computer lab and they spend one hour a week exploring the GEM-Nursing website, submitting questions to mentors, researching nursing careers, searching for nursing scholarship info on the site, etc. This supplements what the students are learning in class.

The Lee's Summit Technology Academy has a pre-nursing class and this partner's students use laptops right in the classroom. This teacher has a pre-determined time in her class for the students to search the GEM-Nursing website and participate in the program. Students are encouraged to keep a journal in which they keep track of the questions they submit to E-mentors and the answers they get back.

Both partners have supplemented the online involvement of their students in the project by inviting guest speakers, local nurse-E mentors to speak to the class. They also try to supplement the GEM-Nursing experience with other types of activities, such as field trips, job shadowing, etc.