Education & Workforce Development

About 30 volunteers from Duke Energy paired with Floyd County third- and fourth-graders to create rain and butterfly gardens at Kevin Hammersmith Memorial Park, Floyd County’s new 35-acre park.

Xploration Station, the country’s only E/I broadcast destination dedicated exclusively to STEM programming for teens and their families, announced the return of its #StudentAstronaut video contest today. This will be the fourth iteration of the nationwide competition tied to the popular TV series Xploration Outer Space. And this year, we’re headed to Russia!

On a national level, Ignite My Future in School has a goal of engaging 20,000 teachers and one million U.S. students by 2021. As a first step towards this objective, TCS and Discovery Education have partnered with U.S. school districts in the D.C area, Georgia, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin as early adopters and launch sites of this transdisciplinary approach. Since its debut, the program has engaged educators from every state, over 3,300 in total, while impacting more than 185,000 students.

While working at a Bay Area nonprofit in the mid-2000s, Rey Faustino routinely took low-income students on tours of major technology companies. He wanted the students to consider tech fields after high school as a path out of the housing, employment, and health care uncertainty that plagued many of their families.

But by the end of each tour, Faustino had more on his mind than career counseling. He was thinking about the power of technology to connect people. More specifically, the power of technology to connect his students to the services they desperately needed.

With the backing of nonprofit accelerator Fast Forward and Comcast NBCUniversal, Faustino launched One Degree in 2012.

Girls Inc. of Metro Denver is working to close the STEM gender gap, one girl at a time. In 2016, with support from Comcast NBCUniversal, the nonprofit became one of the newest affiliates of the national Girls Inc. organization to launch a program geared specifically to underserved middle and high school girls at that pivotal point in their educational development.

Named Eureka!, the five-year program begins with a STEM-focused four-week summer course for 30 girls preparing to enter eighth grade.

For many of us, making connections or finding information online is second nature. But for others, navigating the internet is a small triumph that can lead to life-changing independence. It’s the spark that can ignite a new passion and open doors to future career paths.

The keys that unlock these life-changing moments? Digital literacy and access to technology — two areas of strategic investment at Comcast NBCUniversal that empower people and create opportunities for those who need it most.

Not only is 3D printing radically impacting the manufacturing and industrial sectors, but it is also changing how educators are teaching their students as well. 3D printing is offering educators new ways to explain, teach, and experience different concepts. And, the technology is already being used by teachers all over the world to enhance their lesson plans.

JetBlue today launched its eighth annual Soar with Reading initiative, which provides free books to children who need them most. This summer, Soar with Reading lands in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif. This award-winning literacy initiative tackles the issue of “book deserts,” areas with limited access to age-appropriate books. Since 2011, JetBlue has donated nearly $3 million worth of books to children in areas of need.

JetBlue and Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing are bringing books to children in the Bay Area through 5 custom vending machines which will distribute 100,000 books starting today through August 31, 2018, free of charge. To commemorate this year’s initiative, San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell and Supervisor Jane Kim recognized June 27, 2018 as “Soar with Reading Day.”

Pearson, the digital education company, published its 2017 Sustainability Report, which highlights the progress made in implementing its 2020 Sustainability Plan and a continued vision for integrating social and environmental issues into every aspect of the business.