by: Paula Golden, President of Broadcom Foundation

Arriving in Tucson last month, my car passed a sea of red-shirted teachers protesting in solidarity with over 50,000 educators who marched out of their classrooms to the Phoenix statehouse to demand more funding for public schools. Teachers in Arizona and Colorado joined ranks with colleagues from states like West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky – with more to come. 

This phalanx is seeing “Red for Ed’ucation.”  Rightly so; and it is no small irony that the people’s rebellion over education has been erupting in so-called ‘Red States’ whose elected officials have rejected federal and state funding strategies that might have averted such devastating consequences.  According to the Washington Post, “(t)wenty-nine states now spend less per student on K-12 education than a decade ago… and a number of these states have also cut income taxes, including Oklahoma and Arizona.”

To our everlasting national shame, the United States is eating its own seed corn.

Because politicians have failed to fund comprehensive, […]

I take scouting seriously: my family recited the Boy Scout Law at my father’s funeral as my brother, an Eagle Scout, wept.

Last week, I started a blog about how programs like scouting and the Broadcom MASTERS® create modern-day rites of passage through which young people can find their place in a society that amplifies the positive values and aspirational interests that enables them to become adults in-full and leaders in science, engineering, letters and the arts as well as society at large.

The National Boy Scout Jamboree has been a scouting rite of passage for decades; one that all scouts are encouraged to experience as they go from Tenderfoot to the “apex of leadership and character.” Thus, I was extremely gratified by the Boy Scouts of America CEO’s public disavowal of President Trump’s address at the National Jamboree when, rather than giving guidance and inspiration from a revered elder who tapped into the values embodied in one hundred years of scouting and the United States Constitution, the president gave a […]

Marking the dawn for yet another superhero revival, Wonder Woman, is enjoying a much-anticipated reprise at movie theaters everywhere — the popular comic heroine finally displays her superpower strength on the big screen.

An idol to young women everywhere, Wonder Woman demonstrates power and ability in both body and mind — she is able to solve problems using what we now call ‘21^st century skills’ — problem solving, communication, collaboration and creativity.

How can your own little (K-12) wonder woman acquire these skills?  By learning to code!  Check out this fun game by Google Play, Made with Code and Warner Bros.  Help Wonder Woman fight the bad guys and learn programming concepts at the same time.

Or buy a $35 Raspberry Pi – the tiny, user-friendly computer that makes coding easy and possibilities endless.  Learn how to make your own photo booth, weather station or e-book library to name a few.  Or how about streaming music, […]

This spring, my friend sent me a photo of the Jefferson Memorial, which we visited long before the ascension of Donald Trump and his Republican Congress. The image triggered this thought: were he here today, Thomas Jefferson – scientist, engineer, inventor, botanist, author of the Declaration of Independence, third president of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia (the first to open a school of engineering and applied sciences,) would be leading the March for Science on April 22.

Throngs of scientists and science-minded citizens like me are marching in resistance to the president’s draconian appointments and policies that disavow established science, quell critical thinking, abrogate fact-based knowledge and threaten to roll back advancements in scientific research and education.

Thomas Jefferson would not be pleased; and his immortal words, engraved on the porticos of his memorial, sum up the reasons why my STEM colleagues, the Union of Concerned Scientists and I will march on Washington DC this spring.

First, we march for science […]