Washington - A teenage girl was inspired after dropping her cellphone to create concussion-reducing cushions for football helmets. A team of Girl Scout Brownies designed a bridge that could withstand flooding. And an adolescent boy in a suit and tie told President Obama about his pending patents.
They were just a few of the more than hundred students demonstrating their inventions and research on Tuesday for what Mr. Obama said is one of his favorite events: the White House Science Fair, now in its fourth year.
'As a society, we have to celebrate outstanding work by young people in science at least as much as we do Super Bowl winners,' the president said in the East Room, just a week after he met with the current Super Bowl champions, the Seattle Seahawks, at the White House. 'Because, superstar biologists and engineers and rocket scientists and robot builders, they don't always get the attention that they deserve, but they're what's going to transform our society.'
Before his remarks, Mr. Obama strolled from one exhibit to another set up in the Red Room, the Blue Room and the State Dining Room. He praised the young innovators' 'remarkable' projects and commented that he could not have matched their achievements when he was a student. At one point, he played catch with a catapult - resembling a child in a hat and blue T-shirt - that flung a small basketball at the president.
The fair, a showcase of youthful talent started by the Obama administration, highlights education in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics - collectively known as STEM - and honors young achievers in those fields.
Mr. Obama used the event to announce a $35 million Education Department competition to help reach his goal of training 100,000 teachers. The president also said the administration was expanding an existing AmeriCorps program in an effort to improve STEM education for 18,000 low-income students.
Mr. Obama pointed to seven cities - Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Wichita, Allentown, Pa., and Research Triangle Park, N.C. - that this year are launching mentoring programs to create relationships between students and employees at Cisco, Chevron and more than 200 other companies.
The focus of this year's science fair was on women in STEM disciplines, which perhaps prompted Mr. Obama to single out one the White House guests, Kari Byron of the Discovery Channel program 'Mythbusters.' He called her 'a woman who gets to build and blow stuff up for a living.'
Women represent a small percentage of the graduates and workers in STEM disciplines, a deficiency that hurts the country, he said. 'That means we got half our team we're not even putting on the field,' Mr. Obama said. 'We've got to change those numbers.'
The students, one as young as 6, competed as part of more than 30 teams and represented more than 30 states, won STEM competitions nationwide with research on cancer and influenza, an invention to reduce the need for rare earth minerals in magnets and a robotic vehicle to rescue people from dangerous waters.
Entities 0 Name: Obama Count: 8 1 Name: White House Count: 1 2 Name: State Dining Room Count: 1 3 Name: Indianapolis Count: 1 4 Name: Cisco Count: 1 5 Name: Seattle Seahawks Count: 1 6 Name: Chicago Count: 1 7 Name: East Room Count: 1 8 Name: N.C. Count: 1 9 Name: Wichita Count: 1 10 Name: Philadelphia Count: 1 11 Name: Girl Scout Brownies Count: 1 12 Name: Washington Count: 1 13 Name: Research Triangle Park Count: 1 14 Name: Blue Room Count: 1 15 Name: Chevron Count: 1 16 Name: Kari Byron Count: 1 17 Name: Allentown Count: 1 18 Name: Red Room Count: 1 19 Name: San Francisco Count: 1 20 Name: Pa. Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1jY7OP3 Title: Obama Announces New Competition To Train The Best Math And Science Teachers Description: Posted: Print Article WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama drew attention to girls' science and engineering accomplishments Tuesday as he announced new teacher training competition as well as mentoring efforts to improve and diversify the nation's technological workforce.
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