STEM Funding | News
Google Awards $340,000 in STEM Grants
Google has awarded $340,000 to 26 organizations that provide STEM enrichment programs to students in K-12 and higher education.
Google's RISE program ("Roots in Science and Engineering") is designed to support public and private organizations that support students through science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) initiatives, especially programs geared toward students who might otherwise have limited access to such programs.
The recipients this year included 13 organizations in the United States, five in Africa, and eight in Europe. Recipients in the United States received awards ranging from $10,00 to $25,000. They included:
- Adventures with Robotics, a program of the Redeemer Community Partnership that brings engineering education to elementary students in the Los Angeles area;
- The AndSAM program at Southside High School in South Carolina, which gives students a chance to develop mobile phone applications in school;
- Black Girls Code, a computer programming program focused on females ages 7 to 14 from underserved communities;
- Career Day and Middle School Outreach, a diversity program from the University of Massachusetts Amherst's College of Engineering and Department of Computer Science;
- CodeEd, which focuses on promoting STEM among middle school girls from underserved communities;
- GetSET, a program of the Santa Clara Valley Society of Women Engineers for minority females in the San Francisco area;
- The Greene Scholars Program, from the California Alliance of African American Educators, which is designed to encourage and support African American students pursuing careers in STEM fields;
- MITE ("My Introduction to Engineering") Summer Camps, a high school outreach program from the University of Texas at Austin's Cockrell School of Engineering;
- Little Shop of Physics from Colorado State University, which "connects college students with 20,000+ K-12 students each year, presenting 100+ hands-on science stations that illustrate principles from motion to magnetism";
- The Mathworks Honors Summer Math Camp at Texas State University-San Marcos;
- The Monta Vista Robotics FIRST Team 115, a high school robotics team competes in the the FIRST Robotics Competition;
- The Saturday Academy Classes and Workshops at Saturday Academy, which provides hands-on STEM activities from students in grades 2 through 12 in Oregon and parts of Washington;
- The Utah High School Supercomputing Competition, which, through the Salt Lake Valley Science and Engineering Fair and the University of Utah Center for High Performance Computing, challenges high school students to solve problems using an HPC cluster;
A complete list of 2012 recipients can be found on Google's RISE site.
Registration for the 2013 Google RISE awards will open in fall 2012. Those interested in applying for the 2013 grant can register on the 2013 Google RISE application portal to receive a notification when the application period opens. Additional details can be found on the Google RISE site.
About the Author
David Nagel is editorial director of 1105 Media's Education Technology Group and editor-in-chief of THE Journal and STEAM Universe. A 25-year publishing veteran, Nagel has led or contributed to dozens of technology, art and business publications.
He can be reached at [email protected]. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn at or follow him on Twitter at @THEJournalDave (K-12) or @CampusTechDave (higher education).
