On November 5, 2024, the General Atomics Sciences Education Foundation announced awards of $53,500 in funding to 12 organizations and programs to improve K-12 STEM education. 

1. $2,000 to All Girls STEM Society for STEM materials for their workshops
Each year, AGSS serves around 1000 girls in the San Diego area, and their workshop locations range from Chula Vista to El Cajon to Rancho Penasquitos.  The majority of expenses are for running their workshop and events. Having materials is critical to AGSS, as they value hands-on learning for the participants. Workshops are hosted in low-income communities to address the greater gender disparity in STEM caused by both greater stereotyping and a lack of access to quality education. AGSS is run entirely by volunteer high school students in San Diego, with guidance from an advisory board composed of STEM educators and entrepreneurs. Their mission is to challenge the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields by inspiring young girls from grades 3-8 to pursue their interests in STEM fields through free monthly workshops and events at local libraries. Over 10 years, the organization has had over 9000 participants from more than 300 schools. In their workshops, they teach topics from rocketry to programming to data science and they combine lectures and hands-on activities, such as making slime to learn about the properties of polymers, collecting rock samples from coffee cakes, and exploring neural networks through a Tic-Tac-Toe machine learning tournament. Participants in the workshops have experienced significant positive changes in their attitudes towards STEM.

2. $2,500 to Classics 4 Kids for their STEAM orchestra concerts
Funding will provide subsidized tickets and free bus transportation for ~1,000 students from low-income (Title 1) elementary schools in San Diego County to attend one of their 6 educational STEAM orchestra concerts (Sound Waves: Water Music) scheduled from November 12-15, 2024. With guest educators from local science education nonprofit Wildcoast, students dive into an integrated learning experience where the power of music fosters a deeper understanding of the crucial role oceans play on our planet. The educator utilizes the orchestra to deliver a carefully curated lesson plan on a scientific topic, incorporating interactive, musical elements to cater to multisensory learning. The curriculum will also delve into how science, mathematics and nature inspire composers as they create their art. This project will benefit traditionally underserved communities in San Diego County and aims to enhance academic achievement, character development, and community connections by offering the event at a new venue, The Joan B. Kroc Theatre. This inclusive location enables access to schools from high-poverty neighborhoods located in the San Diego Promise Zone. This project will benefit traditionally underserved San Diego County students by building skillsets in fields that are essential in STEM disciplines: Cognitive development, mathematical concepts, creativity and innovation, and multisensory learning.

3. $1,000 to Huntsville Botanical Garden for their STEM programs
Funding will provide access to the Garden’s STEM programs to underserved and low-to-moderate income youth in the greater Huntsville area. The Garden’s robust STEM Programs include the following: STEM Camps, STEM Field Trips, STEM Youth Volunteer Program, Nature Academy, Seeds to Sprouts, Art of Sustainable Science and Nature School. Huntsville Botanical Garden serves over 11,000 students annually through its Pre-K-12 STEM Education programs. In 2023, 29% of youth were from rural and Title 1 schools, with 29% black or African American and 10% Hispanic or Latino. Huntsville Botanical Garden, located within three miles of the General Atomics Huntsville, Alabama facility, has offered field trips to schools across North Alabama for over 15 years. All field trips align with Alabama and Next Generation standards to best support the teachers’ requirements for science education. Field trip themes include pollination, habitats, conservation, sustainability, plant adaptations, seeds, water quality, soils, and more. The Garden’s Nature Academy has provided hands-on science classes designed to enrich STEM learning for students in grades K-8, and features sustainability, water quality, soil, weather, season changes, gardening, pollinators, green industry careers, and more! The Garden’s STEM Camps include hands-on, engaging STEM activities, with instructors to guide day campers, ages 4-12, through natural exploration on a variety of mission-focused topics. Campers participate in a range of outdoor projects, experiments, and play activities that inspire curiosity, creativity, and exploration in the Garden’s 118-acre living laboratory.

4. $2,500 to A Step Beyond for their World of Work Career Simulation Labs
A Step Beyond (ASB) is an after-school Creative Youth Development organization serving very low-income children and youth in North Inland San Diego County. ASB’s ultimate purpose is to break the cycle of poverty by providing intensive, long-term STEAM education, career exploration opportunities, and family services tailored to participants’ needs so they can become college and career ready. ASB recruits participants from 22 Escondido and San Marcos elementary schools. Once a child is accepted, they participate in ASB for 9 to 10 years, through high school graduation. All services are provided at no cost. ASB currently is serving 233 participants. ASB’s service population is predominantly very low-income, and Latinx. ASB participants are 95% Latinx, with smaller numbers of African American, Asian, and White non-Latinx participants; 63% are girls, and 37% are boys. Fifty-five percent of participants speak English as a second language. Key elements of this program are dance education and performance, academic support and college and career readiness, mentoring and enrichment programs, and family services and parental involvement. This request will support the World of Work Career Simulation Labs to enhance modules on drone and flight technology, biomedical engineering, and structural engineering; it will expose them to the problems they address; the nature of the tools used to develop solutions; the pathway to entry into these fields; and opportunities to experience a “day in the life” of someone in these careers. ASB expects to engage a minimum of 80 middle/high school students in the 2024-25 school year with its Career Simulation Labs.

5. $10,000 to Chapter One for their Reading Volunteers Program
Funding will support the implementation of the Chapter One (formerly TutorMate) program at GA&A.  Funding will support up to 3 rooms at 10 GA tutors per room for a maximum of 30 GA tutors and 30 elementary school students.  Each GA tutor tutors an at-risk first grade student in the New Haven Unified School District in the San Francisco Bay Area for 30 minutes per week from their work location using their computer and phone. Funds are used to support Innovations for Learning/Chapter One staff and to purchase computers and other equipment used by the schools for this program. Only 15% of New Haven first graders are proficient in literacy so there is a strong need. The student body at the schools served by New Haven Unified School District is 5.9% White, 4.6% Black, 45.1% Asian or Asian/Pacific Islander, 37.3% Hispanic/Latino, 0.6% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 1.6% Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.  It’s the 8th most diverse school district in CA.  21 GA&A employees participated in this program in 2023-2024.

6. $10,000 to  Air & Space Forces Association for their CyberPatriot and StellarXplorers programs
Funding will sponsor 2 AFA national programs: CyberPatriot, a cyber security program, consisting of camps, and competition;  and StellarXplorers, a space design program, consisting of camps, and competition. In CyberPatriot’s 16-year history, more than 144,000 CyberPatriot alumni have gone on to pursue STEM degrees and more than 83,000 are now working in the cyber field. In the 2023-24 competition season, there were 20,000 students on 5,183 teams in all fifty states, multiple US territories and DoD schools overseas. To promote inclusion, competition registration fees are waived for teams from Title 1 schools and for all-female teams.  In 2023-2024, nearly 20% of CyberPatriot and 15% of StellarXplorers teams were from California (94 CyberPatriot teams and 4 StellarXplorers teams were from San Diego County). 6 of 28 CyberPatriot National Finalist teams were from San Diego County, including the Middle School National Champion and Second Place teams; the High-School Open Division (non-JROTC) National Second and Third Place teams; and the All Service Division (JROTC) Second Place team.  Cyber Partner and Stellar Partner sponsorships are also available at $5K/program.

7. $5,000 to Rowan Elementary School for develop a Makeblock robotics program
Rowan elementary school has about 280 students ranging from Transitional Kindergarten to 5th grade.  Located in the heart of City Heights, Rowan’s student body is one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse communities in San Diego.  The City Heights demographics is comprised of Mexican, Asian and African Americans, with a significant portion classified as immigrants or refugees.   Burdened with such stark economic disadvantage, these families do not have the resources to provide their kids with enriching educational hobbies. As a result, Rowan is a Title I school, where over 40% of the student body qualifies for subsidized meals.  Rowan is faced with the same hurdle – having to devote most of their funding to address other needs, there is simply not enough funds to invest in extra-curricular STEM Educational programs. The plan for the 2024-2025 school year is to use the Makeblock Robotics platform, the mBot2.  This platform uses the block-based coding interface Scratch, which translates to python programming all in the same interface.  The kit comes with well-developed curriculum and self-guided projects that students can walk through at their own pace.  Each robot comes with a vast array of sensors and components that students will learn to build and integrate such as - motor encoder, ultrasonic sensors, light sensors and a microphone.  There is even an AI module that students will learn to interact with.  The initial goal is to be able to support up to 30 committed students (3rd through 5th grade), with each student having their own robot to program and learn on.  Leadership will be provided by GA-ASI electrical engineer Levi Parsell.

8. $4,000 to Expanding Your Horizons of San Diego for their 2025 EYH Conference

Funding will support the EYH Conference on March 15th, 2025. The conference is a full day of interactive, hands-on STEM workshops for girls in grades 6-10.  With an average of 60% or more receiving waivers and families struggling with astronomical inflation, we will not be increasing our nominal fee of $30/participant for those that can pay it and will continue to offer waivers to all that request them. EYH Conference is a unique event in San Diego as it provides girls with a day of science discovery in laboratories on a college campus through workshops conducted by professionals from industry, government organizations and academia. The conference format is designed to provide social, fun and engaging experiences with a variety of STEM topics. Since 2002, the annual conference has connected 350-450 girls from varied socio-economic backgrounds with local STEM professionals. Each group of 15-20 participants is mentored by 2-3 female STEM undergraduate students, providing role models that research indicates is vital to inspiring to 6-10th grade females. These elements are designed to increase the girls’ interest in STEM careers by providing exciting STEM experiences and interactions. The four core elements of all three of our female-focused programs include mentorship, accessibility to our programs at low or no cost, an emphasis on skills required in the workforce and hands-on approaches to STEM activities. 

9. $5,000 to Olivewood Gardens & Learning Center for their Children’s Garden Science and Nutrition Education Program
Funding will support the Children’s Garden Science and Nutrition Education Program for the 2024-2025 school year, which provides garden-based, experiential environmental, and nutrition STEM
programming to youth at Olivewood and 10 onsite school gardens for 4,200 National School District (NSD) K-6 students. Funding will be used to support the salaries of program educators and instructional materials and supplies. The program’s purpose is to improve access to garden-based environmental and nutrition education, improve student garden/nutrition science knowledge and learning outcomes, increase student consumption of fruits/vegetables, and improve student behaviors and attitudes related to the natural environment. Examples of STEM grade level learning experiences include Seeds & Germination, Plant Life Cycles, Diversity of living things in different habitats, Renewable and nonrenewable resources, Cycle of Matter, and Flow of Energy. All 580 4th grade NSD students attend a 3-part field trip series to Olivewood focusing on environmental and nutrition science.  Olivewood serves the communities of National City, CA and San Diego’s South Region, which are historically under-invested and low-income. 66% of residents identify as Latinx/Hispanic, 19% as Asian, more than 70% of elementary age students in the National School District (NSD) qualify for free/reduced lunch. In 2021, National City received the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Prize as a result of the dedicated work of community organizations like Olivewood.

10. $5,000 to Greater Than Tech for their Education Programs
GTT is dedicated to creating the next generation of innovative technology leaders by introducing underserved students to immersive educational programs at the intersection of STEM and business. They accomplish their mission through dynamic programming for both K-12 students and educators in 1-day to 5-day workshops, development programs, demo days and training.  In 2024 GTT served over 550 underserved students of color between the ages of 11 and 18 in San Diego County. Most come from Southeast San Diego and all students come from Title-1 schools and are eligible for the Free and Reduced Lunch program; they are 40% Black, 35% Latinx, 10% Asian, 15% multi-racial; and 70% female, 30% male.  Some funding will be used for the GTT Alumnae Club Capstone, where 10 – 16 middle and high school students will build a variable zoom imaging system using a provided imaging sensor. Students will use COTS parts from a provided list and kit to create their designs for the system. Students will also use block code to automate the zoom process. Funds will also support the Tech Capstone Showcase, which is an end of the year tech showcase for all our GTT Alumnae students’ projects. This event invites the community to see what our students have learned and developed for their capstone projects. This event requires getting a rental space for the event, food and event materials. GTT instills the importance of self-efficacy, teamwork, social impact and an entrepreneurial mindset in all its programming, GTT builds pipelines and pathways to help underserved students engineer their own futures in tech.

11. $1,500 to Los Angeles County Science & Engineering Fair for their 2025 Fair
Funding will support the annual Los Angeles County Science and Engineering Fair on March 9-10, 2025 that is designed to broaden student engagement in STEM and expose middle and high school students to inquiry-based science and design thinking engineering that takes them beyond the classroom and focuses on real-world problems. Through their projects, students develop and refine skills that span multiple disciplines, including but not limited to reading, research, critical thinking, math, writing, data analysis, computer science, organization, presentation, and time management.  927 students from 109 schools participated in 2024; 54% of students were female. LACSEF provides fee waivers to any Title I school or school with 80% or more under-represented minorities;  fee waivers were provided to 20.2% of the participating schools. Fifteen High School students, who participated in the 2024 Los Angeles County Science and Engineering Fair, were participants at the 2024 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). Forty-two students qualified and entered the 2023 Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge (JIC).

12. $5,000 to North County Education Foundation for their 2025 SuperSTEM Saturday
Funding will cover costs for the Super STEM Saturday festival on March 8, 2025, a one-day STEM festival that has approximately 18,000 attendees from all over the greater San Diego region. The time period for using the funds is March and April 2025. The sponsorship funds will go to pay for Super STEM Saturday event fees and expenses including: exhibition booth table and canopy rentals, event parking, program printing, t-shirts, attendee bags, facility rental, etc. Super STEM Saturday is a free STEM education festival in North San Diego, California. The annual event, which expects 18,000+ attendees, will be held in collaboration with The Classical Academies and Cal State University San Marcos (CSUSM) on March 8, 2025, on the CSUSM campus. Super STEM Saturday is not just a community festival but a significant and free event that serves as a powerful platform to inspire youth to explore science, technology, engineering, and applied math. The event has nearly 120 hands-on, interactive STEM activities
and demonstrations, and is designed to provide a rich educational experience.  GA has sponsored and actively participated in the event since at least 2018. Daren Wade, Director, EE Integration Group, Aircraft Systems Group has helped host the exhibition booth.