The STEM Next Opportunity Fund announced a multiyear $50,000 grant to the Iowa Afterschool Alliance as part of the Million Girls Moonshot, an initiative launched by the Intel Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. The effort is designed to engage 1 million school-age girls in the U.S. in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) learning opportunities over the next five years. The Iowa Afterschool Alliance will use funds to create an online repository of STEM lessons with a focus on engineering and equity, as well as provide professional development opportunities to further educate after-school sites on implementing more STEM learning.
“The Million Girls Moonshot provides an extraordinary opportunity for after-school programs in Iowa to make an enormous impact on the lives of all our youth, and particularly our girls,” said Iowa Network Lead Britney Samuelson. “The future economy of our state and our nation will rely heavily on the STEM fields, and after-school programs are uniquely situated to help prepare our youth for those career opportunities.”
Led by STEM Next Opportunity Fund, the Million Girls Moonshot will tap a range of funding and programmatic partners, including NASA, Qualcomm, Technovation, STEMconnector, National Girls Collaborative Project, Jobs for the Future, Techbridge Girls and Lyda Hill Philanthropies. The Million Girls Moonshot is providing the Iowa Afterschool Alliance and other state after-school networks with technical assistance, educational resources, access to Intel’s She Will Connect partners and mentorship from STEM experts including Intel employee volunteers.
