Big Deal Book

VSTE partners with Big Deal Media to bring you the best in online resources, grant and competition opportunities and more. In this edition, you can Deepen Cultural Awareness, Celebrate Making, Spark Imagination & More.

Here are a few of our favorites from this edition...be sure to check the full Big Deal Book for more great resources!

Challenge Future Engineers

On September 21, 2015, NASA launched the first-ever Zero-G 3D Printer (built by Made In Space) to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX-4. To celebrate the launch of this “In Space Manufacturing” revolution, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Foundation and NASA have partnered to challenge K–12 students in the United States to Think Outside the Box with 3D printing—literally. To take the challenge, students need to design an object that assembles, telescopes, hinges, accordions, grows, or expands to become larger than the printing bounds of the AMF 3D printer (14cm long x 10cm wide x 10cm tall). The deadline is August 1, 2016. Learn more by clicking the link below.

Share Educational Accomplishments

GoEnnounce lets middle school and high school students create and share electronic portfolios of their academic and extracurricular achievements. On the free platform (or using the free iOS app), students can build personal pages where they highlight their activities and awards, showcase their school projects, and connect with their family, peers, and mentors.

Explore Under the Paint

The Touch Van Gogh app from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam gives students a unique look at Vincent van Gogh’s work and techniques as they discover the hidden treasures in his paintings, just as the original restorers did.

Big Deal Book, May 16, 2016

Not everything in the Book is time sensitive so be sure to check out the archives.

VSTE partners with Big Deal Media to bring you the best in online resources, grant and competition opportunities and more. In this edition, you can Juxtapose Photographs, Consider Ethical Questions, Gather STEAM & More.

Here are a few of our favorites from this edition...be sure to check the full Big Deal Book for more great resources!

Make Your Dream STEM Lab a Reality

Northrop Grumman Foundation aims to get students excited about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by making five grants of up to $100,000 each available to public middle schools for a fabulous school lab makeover. To enter theFab School Labs Contest, applicants should create a video or submit photos, along with a written essay describing their current classroom and their vision for a school lab makeover.

Celebrate Visual Storytelling

A new quarterly print magazine for creative youth and their grownups, ILLUSTORIA celebrates visual storytelling, makers, andDYI culture. With backgrounds in design, comics, illustration, writing, and publishing, the magazine’s contributors share a belief in the power of stories, art, and creative expression.

Explore Worlds of Art

#MetKids is made for, with, and by youth and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The website encourages children across the globe to explore The Met.

Big Deal Book, May 2, 2016

Not everything in the Book is time sensitive so be sure to check out the archives.

VSTE partners with Big Deal Media to bring you the best in online resources, grant and competition opportunities and more. In this edition, you can Hip-Hop into History, Develop Web Literacy, Augment Reality & More.

This week, it is all about Shakespeare! We recognize the 400th anniversary of his death.

Experience the Best of Shakespeare

The Stratford Festival in Canada is commemorating the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death by making his plays accessible to a generation raised on the Internet. The festival has unveiled an online teaching platform that will include each ofShakespeare’s scripts, a film clip of every scene, and notes to understand each piece of dialogue. King Lear is the first play to be offered using these tools. More titles will be added as part of the festivals to capture on film the complete works of Shakespeare over the next 10 years. Created by the Festival’s Education Department in collaboration with D2L Corporation, the free toolkit—called PerformancePlus—is targeted at students and teachers in grades 9–12 but is available to all.

Click Here to Visit Website

Plus: On April 22, 2016, at 9:30 a.m. (ET), Discovery Education will host a virtual field trip that guides K–12 students on a journey through Shakespeare’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon, giving them the chance to take an exclusive tour around his birthplace. The program will visit Shakespeare’s Schoolroom and Guildhall, where the young author was inspired to create some of the greatest works of English literature. During this visit, participating classrooms will witness a re-enacted Tudor lessonand be among the first to “step inside” the newly renovated 600-year-old school building. After visiting Stratford-upon-Avon, students will travel to London, where they will learn about Shakespeare’s life in the Tudor capital through a tour of some of the city’s hidden Shakespeare locations, ending at the famous Globe Theatre, where his plays were staged. Participating classrooms will see The Bard’s work brought to life as they watch local students perform scenes from Macbeth and hear how the themes of Shakespeare’s work are still relevant today. Classrooms across the country are invited to register for this virtual tour at no cost.

There's so much more in the...

Big Deal Book, April 15, 2016

Not everything in the Book is time sensitive so be sure to check out the archives.

VSTE partners with Big Deal Media to bring you the best in online resources, grant and competition opportunities and more. In this edition, you can Explore Design Thinking, Invite an Author, Take a Virtual Tour & More.

Here are just a few highlights from this edition. Click the link below to get additional information about them and find lots more.

Experience Your America

In celebration of its 100th birthday in 2016, the National Park Service has launched Find Your Park, a movement to spread the word about the amazing places the park service manages, the inspirational stories that the national parks tell, the country’s natural resources, and America’s diverse cultural heritage.

Break Down Barriers and Boundaries

Our Africa, a web resource developed by SOS Children, the world’s largest charity for orphaned and abandoned children, features countries in Africa through the eyes of children. The website has an extensive—and growing—collection of videos that bring viewers right into these children’s worlds.

Develop the Mindset of Innovators

Design Challenge Learning is a combination of project-based learning, design thinking, and the engineering design processthat develops the innovator’s mindset through iteration. It’s a method of learning for which The Tech Museum of Innovation, in San Jose, California, is best known.

Big Deal Book, April 1, 2016

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VSTE partners with Big Deal Media to bring you the best in online resources, grant and competition opportunities and more. In this edition, you can Integrate Science & Music, Engage in Debate, Celebrate Reading & More.

Here are just a few highlights from this edition. Click the link below to learn more about them and find lots more.

Engage Students in Current Events

Designed for the iPad and iPhone by Press4Kids, the News-O-Matic, Daily Reading for Kids app provides images, videos, and maps to accompany five daily news stories, in English and Spanish, at three reading levels. The app also includes a bilingual Read to Me feature.

Sing Along with Scientists

Space School Musical, a multimedia Discovery Program from NASA, takes students on a trip through the solar system in a “hip-hopera” that uses song and dance to introduce the planets, moons, comets, asteroids, and even some rockin’ scientists and engineers—present and past—who present facts about the galaxy.

Champion Children’s Books

Established in 1919, Children’s Book Week is the longest-running national literacy initiative in the country. Every year commemorative events are held nationwide at schools, libraries, bookstores, homes—wherever young readers and books connect. Children’s Book Week is administered by Every Child a Reader, a 501(c)(3) literacy organization dedicated to instilling a lifelong love of reading in children.

Big Deal Book, March 15, 2016

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