Talking Techquity:
Education
EDUCATION
Through service learning, EDUCATIONAL ENGAGEMENT helps students develop as scholars, leaders, and engaged citizens. Meanwhile, success in STEM is a ticket to the middle class, but at-risk learners rarely receive the sustained and progressive exposure needed to build interest, passion, and determination.
To address these issues, we are building a unified STEM development pipeline that leverages local research and is well-suited for building long-term equitable university-community relationships.
Every individual has the ability to motivate others and inspire true change. By Organizing an Event, you become a crucial part of our movement by making sure that our mission is heard and has a far-reaching, lasting impact.
ENGAGEMENT (EDUCATION)
Community Learning Labs
As a large movement of faculty and community activists, public engagement is close to our hearts. We believe that the best solutions for today's grand challenges come from within, and make it our mission to build awareness across institutions to create possibility across the globe.
Grand Challenges
Robotics and Sensors
Analytics
Scientific Visualization
Predictive Modeling
YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS
Making a Difference
Use the Storefront as a coordinated service-learning center, venue for all Big Build construction, and as a STEM and social justice exhibition space, to showcase engaged-research results applicable the community, and to provide space for informal GRASP learning labs centered on Grand Challenge phenomena.
Using funds earmarked for broader impact and engagement, collaborate with local institutions to build, pilot, and evaluate GRASP curricula for additional Grand Challenges and multiple phenomena. Incorporate service learning as appropriate, and include community planning, reaction, and impact in the evaluation.
Using broader impact/engagement funds and service learning to create, deliver, and evaluate Teacher Training modules needed for each new Grand Challenge phenomenon. The target audience includes both pre- and in-service teachers who will use GRASP in their classrooms, and those who will use GRASP in informal educational after-school programs, camps, and special events.
Use broader impact funds to build the digital infrastructure to make GRASP updates and student credentialing status rapidly available nationwide, including a distributed online community hub for information on GRASP curricula, training, feedback, questions, and research.
MAHOMET AQUIFER PROJECT
SCULPT THE MODEL
Perfect Execution
EXPLORE THE NARRATIVE
A Real Success
SHARE THE STORY
Exceptional Achievement
MAKE AN IMPACT
Perfect Execution
OUR GRAND CHALLENGE MOVEMENT
CS+X Foundation is dedicated to a few central causes which we believe are crucial in helping us achieve our goals. As a growing movement, we divide our time and efforts so that we can truly invest in each cause. Read on to learn more.
SUMMARY
The world's water supplies are facing new threats; affordable, advanced technologies could make a difference for millions of people around the world.
When Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote “water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink,” he did not have the 21st century’s global water situation in mind. But allowing for poetic license, he wasn’t far from correct. Today, the availability of water for drinking and other uses is a critical problem in many areas of the world.
How serious is our water challenge?
Lack of clean water is responsible for more deaths in the world than war. About 1 out of every 6 people living today do not have adequate access to water, and more than double that number lack basic sanitation, for which water is needed. In some countries, half the population does not have access to safe drinking water, and hence is afflicted with poor health. By some estimates, each day nearly 5,000 children worldwide die from diarrhea-related diseases, a toll that would drop dramatically if sufficient water for sanitation was available.
GRAND CHALLENGES
As a large movement of activists, Outreach is close to our hearts. We believe that the best solutions for society come from within, and make it our mission to build awareness so that this is a possibility across the globe.
ROBOTICS AND SENSORS
Chairman's Award Essay (2018)
CS+X Foundation has built an environment of support and helpful resources to make sure that Partnership is always a priority. Our success is driven by the hearts, minds, and souls of our community. Come and join us.
"What you're doing is remarkable," said Congressman Rodney Davis in a meeting about strategies to combat the alarming racial disparities in STEM fields and higher education with Ctrl-Z students. While Ctrl-Z spends countless hours working to generate STEM opportunities in our community, we recognize that we can't do it alone. Just as FIRST inspires us to make STEM education an integral part of our mission, we inspire other Central Illinois organizations to share our vision as well. By meeting with important community figures and discussing ways their organizations can promote the mission of FIRST, we are uniting powerful Champaign-Urbana institutions under a common goal of widespread engineering inspiration. Because our children's world revolves around their schools, Ctrl-Z feels the best way to incorporate robotics education into school curriculums is by exciting district administrators about the benefits of robotics education in primary schools. Ctrl-Z students have had over ten meetings to discuss racism in the classroom and the resulting achievement gap with the Assistant Superintendent of a local school district with nearly 10,000 students. Following this discussion, we worked out strategies to bring young members of underrepresented groups into the FIRST community, which we are working towards by being a founding member of CS+X, a local science center with the goal to make robotics education universally accessible. Our team is provided shop space in exchange for help with CS+X projects, including demonstrations, curriculum advice, help with coding and even grant writing. As a part of CS+X, Ctrl-Z students and parents have teamed up with professors at the University of Illinois, potential investors, members of the Champaign-Urbana research and professional community, and educators. Together we're developing a robotics education curriculum to be integrated in all local public elementary and middle schools, following students from the first grade to the eighth grade. As a whole, local organizations are looking to Ctrl-Z for advice on how they, too, can engage our youth in science and engineering.
Seven years ago, Champaign-Urbana was a very different place. Opportunities for youth education in robotics were few and far between. Since Ctrl-Z's inception, the opportunities have grown tremendously. By providing a strong peer group for girls and minority students from a wide range of home environments, Ctrl-Z has become a sanctuary for aspiring student engineers. Ctrl-Z has inspired students to devour knowledge about engineering, cherish diversity, and prioritize providing access to STEM education to those who otherwise lack the opportunity. As an organization, we inspire both our team members and community figures to help make robotics education easily accessible. With diversity and knowledge at the top of the team's core values, innovative Ctrl-Z students and alumni will continue to have impact for years to come.
ANALYTICS
Advocacy is an essential pillar of our Community Movement. There is strength in numbers, and we work to inform and encourage others to take a stand for what they believe in. Want to learn more?
SCIENTIFIC VISUALIZATION AND THE ARTS
Wix.com has built an environment of support and helpful resources to make sure that Partnership is always a priority. Our success is driven by the hearts, minds, and souls of our community. Come and join us.
PREDICTIVE MODELING
Advocacy is an essential pillar of our Community Movement. There is strength in numbers, and we work to inform and encourage others to take a stand for what they believe in. Want to learn more?