President Obama recently named NMSI board member Sally Ride to help lead a national campaign to encourage education in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), saying the U.S. needs to make a new push to excel in sciences, as evidence shows American students continuing to fall behind other countries in science and math.

Dr. Ride, a former NASA astronaut and president of Sally Ride Science Inc., and former Intel Chairman Craig Barrett have agreed to recruit private sector leaders to advocate math and science education, scale up innovative science and math education programs and raise public awareness of the importance of math and science education.

As part of the effort, called "Educate to Innovate," government and private industry have committed to donating more than $260 million in new support to education projects.  The money will be spent through five public-private partnerships, which the White House said would leverage 100,000 volunteers, media and interactive games to reach more than 10 million students by the end of 2013.

As part of the five-partnership efforts:

• Discovery Communications, in partnership with research universities and federal agencies, will spend $150 million over five years on new educational content as part of its "Be The Future" campaign.
• Time Warner Cable, FIRST Robotics and the Coalition for Science After School will link up students with opportunities that exist in their areas.
• PNC Bank and Sesame Street will invest money in math and science for young children and create 20 Sesame Street episodes focused on math and science in its Early Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Literacy Initiative.
• A number of non-profits will fund a nationwide science play day, upgrade science labs and create communities of science and math teachers on "National Lab Day."
• Sony, the MacArthur Foundation and the Entertainment Software Association will award children and adults who create innovative science and math games with their National STEM Game Design Competitions.

NMSI board member Dr. Bruce Alberts has been named one of the first U.S. Science and Technology Envoys to Muslim communities around the world by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Secretary Clinton announced a new initiative on Nov. 3 to bolster science and technology collaboration with Muslim communities.  The Secretary named Dr. Alberts, Dr. Elias Zerhouni and Dr. Ahmed Zewail as the first three U.S. Science and Technology Envoys and announced that the State Department will expand positions for environment, science, technology and health officers at U.S. embassies.

"We want to help Muslim majority communities develop the capacity to meet economic, social and ecological challenges through science, technology and innovation," Secretary Clinton said.

The U.S. Science Envoy program is part of President Obama's "New Beginning" initiative with Muslim communities around the world, which he launched in a speech June 4 in Cairo, Egypt.  He pledged that the U.S. would "appoint new science envoys to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water and grow new crops."  The initiative drew key support from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senator Richard Lugar.

In coming months, the science envoys will travel to countries in North Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia.  They will engage their counterparts, deepen partnerships in all areas of science and technology and foster meaningful collaboration to meet the challenges facing the world today in health, energy, the environment and water and resource management.  Additional U.S. scientists and engineers will be invited to join the envoy program and expand its outreach.

Dr. Alberts is editor-in-chief of Science magazine and former president of the National Academies.  He is widely recognized for his work in the fields of biochemistry and molecular biology.  Dr. Alberts also is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California in San Francisco.  As president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) from 1993-2005, he was instrumental in developing the landmark National Science Education standards that have been implemented in schools throughout the U.S.

Dr. Zerhouni was director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 2002-2008.  He currently is a senior advisor to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  Dr. Zewail is the Linus Pauling Chair Professor of Chemistry and professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology and director of the Institute's Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology.

NMSI recently reached out to students who are actively involved in our teacher training program and asked them how they would define a UTeach student.  Based on their collective feedback, a UTeach student is defined as someone who believes in the importance of math and science and is passionate about helping others.

Angela Snow
Temple University
Philadelphia, Pa.

As a former soccer coach and camp counselor, Angela Snow, a 19-year-old chemistry major at Temple University in Philadelphia, knew she liked working with kids.  She got hooked on teaching when she had her first taste of practice teaching in the UTeach program.  "I love seeing students learn, to watch them 'get it.'  They feel a sense of accomplishment, and so do you," she says.

Marc Duke
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas

Marc Duke, a 27-year-old UTeach student from California, says, "The UTeach program challenges you to understand what you know -- and you find out you don't know as much as you think.  It challenges you to become a life-long learner."

Duke, a scuba diver, was in the marine science program when he heard about UTeach.  A friend had suggested he might try teaching, since he liked science.  He got into the UTeach program, he says, and was hooked.  "The first time you see a kid light up when he or she understands something, that's when the passion comes in."

Duke has a learning disability himself, so he can appreciate some of the special challenges students face.  "I can try to work with them in the way they need to be helped," he said.

He's also suggested the program to his friends, saying, "If you really love the concept of math and science -- or English -- you should think about teaching it.  Teaching really challenges what you know."

Judging from the feedback from students enrolled in the Advanced Placement courses supported by NMSI grants, today's AP students come from all walks of life, but they all are hard-working and determined to succeed in college -- and life.