GO STEM, 1 University Boulevard, La Grande, OR (2026)

09/03/2026

Marine biologists often read reports of fishermen about the behavior of ocean creatures. Sometimes these are hard to confirm and hard to believe. One report from the waters off Australia was of dolphins lifting shells out of the water above their heads. Why would they do such a thing and why would other dolphins copy their behavior? Eyewitness to this spectacle, marine biologist Alexis Levengood watched as the bottlenose dolphin lifted the shell out of the water and then gulped down a fish that had been hiding inside. The clever dolphins chase small fish along the bottom of a reef. When the fish dodges capture by sneaking into an empty shell, the dolphin deftly picks up the shell and takes it to the surface where water and meal dump out ready to be gulped down. Alexis believes that this is a learned behavior picked up or reinvented by other populations of dolphins around Australia.

Learn more at: https://www.sciencealert.com/dolphins-filmed-hunting-with-shells-and-possibly-passing-the-skill-to-their-offspring

09/03/2026

Everyone knows that an adequate pattern of sleep in one’s life leads to better health outcomes. Too little sleep over time can lead to health problems. Very little of this advice sinks in to young people attending college, however. It is typical that most students get less than six hours of sleep on weeknights and sometimes even less on the weekend. To combat both the reluctance to get more sleep and to determine the positive impacts of more sleep, researchers created two groups. Both were given tracking watches that recorded total sleep each day. One group was given a daily reminder and an incentive of $4.74 a night if they met a sleep goal of 7 hours. The results of the study showed that the incentives worked for 26 percent of the experimental group who met the 7-hour threshold. Overall, the group gained 19 minutes per night of sleep. Researchers also measured GPA results during the experimental periods and found that the added sleep group improved their grades a small amount over the control group.

Learn more at: https://www.sciencealert.com/a-simple-change-to-sleep-directly-boosts-academic-performance-study-reveals

09/03/2026

GO STEM Educators: Get ready to design a STEM-Powered Learning experience for your students and classroom! Registration is open for our STEM-Powered Learning Fellowship | Math for the Real World: Data Edition.

This cohort is not just for Math or Science teachers but all grade levels and content areas: Kindergarten through 12th grade, English Language Arts, Social Sciences, Health, CTE, Art, and more. (If your students gather information, notice patterns, ask investigative questions, and use evidence to make a case, this fellowship is for you.)

Join a cohort of Eastern Oregon educators who will collaborate across the school year to learn about STEM integration and how to design STEM-Powered learning experiences.

WHAT YOU'LL RECEIVE: A $1,250 stipend upon completion, 7 PDUs, new ideas and support, and planning tools, resources, templates, and networking.

YOUR COMMITMENT: A growth mindset, 7 hours on Zoom (six collaborative sessions and one individualized feedback session in the Winter/Spring, based on your availability), planning time, and a willingness to reflect and share.

In this cohort, you’ll design your own data-inspired, STEM-Powered Learning experience. We’ll bring examples from real classrooms and model our process using Project-Based Learning, but you will decide what to create and implement with your learners. In collaboration, you will build something that makes sense for you, your students, and your community.

We will look at Oregon content area standards and discuss how transformative SEL can be woven into a STEM-Powered experience, centered on:
🔍 A problem worth solving
🔗 At least two content areas that come together
📊 Data, driving the investigation
🧭 Real decisions made by students
🌎 A product that goes beyond the classroom

Educators will decide what this looks like in their setting and will collaborate and share with each other, along the way. And through the fellowship, you’ll experience the same engineering design process that you could use with your students. At the end of the school year, we’ll come back together for a showcase of ideas to share what worked, what surprised you, and what you learned.

Spots are limited. Apply for the fellowship here: https://forms.gle/iKCgR1Npt13cFkX17

Questions? Email us at: [email protected]

09/01/2026

Every year, 10,000 meteoroids hit the Earth. Mostly, they go unnoticed, plunking into the ocean. But a goodly proportion hit solid ground. These too go largely unnoticed as much of the Earth’s landmass is sparsely populated.

Given these facts, what are the chances that a meteoroid would hit a building, car, animal, or person?

Statisticians have worked out the odds. The chances of you getting beaned by a rock from outer space is about one in a million. You are more likely to be hit by lightning (1 in 135,000) or in a car accident (one in 90). However, the likelihood of winning the lottery is one in 292,000,000, so a meteor shower is a far more likely windfall!

Historically, meteoroids have been recorded as hitting houses, offices, cars, cows, and people- well, at least one person for sure. A woman in 1954 was bruised by a 12-pound hunk of iron that slammed through the roof and bounced around, clunking into her hip. Even if you or your car gets hit by a meteoroid, don’t despair. One owner received $25,000 from the rock that ruined his $400 Chevy!

Learn more at: https://www.iflscience.com/meteorites-have-hit-houses-cows-and-maybe-even-a-dog-but-over-the-years-theyve-also-hit-a-number-of-cars-84334

09/01/2026

Wild boars are a problem across North and South America and Europe. They have been introduced as game animals and have systematically taken over as an invasive species in many areas of the southern United States and in Argentina and Brazil. They are successful foragers living on forest margins while raiding agricultural crops. They will interbreed with domestic pigs to form wild hybrids. Since they are sometimes bred in Brazil as a food source, concerns have been raised about the bacteria they harbor. Strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria like E. coli have been found in half the pigs tested. An infection contracted through contact with the animal cannot be controlled with common antibiotics. Even the most powerful of drugs show that strains of E. coli are becoming resistant. Wild boar populations have been increasingly under scrutiny as they displace native animals. Control of populations is difficult and expensive, but with the added knowledge that they can be harboring and transmitting drug-resistant bacteria, the calls to eradicate the animal are on the rise.

Learn more at: https://www.sciencealert.com/wild-boars-in-brazil-are-spreading-antibiotic-resistant-bacteria-scientists-warn

09/01/2026

📣 Attention GO STEM Math Educators: Join the Oregon Middle School Math PLC: Statewide Virtual Professional Learning Community!

Join math educators from across Oregon in this year-long, virtual PLC designed to deepen understanding of the mathematical concepts embedded in the middle school state standards and achievement level descriptors. Together, we'll use data to guide our learning, do and discuss math as a professional community, connect curricular materials to state standards, and build skill in making purposeful decisions about what to keep, supplement, or discard from instructional resources.

The group meets the last Tuesday of the month, 4-5pm PST via Zoom, with about 30 minutes of asynchronous pre-work each month to prime the discussion. Sessions focus on strategies for engaging students in sense-making, justifying, and generalizing about grade-level core math ideas.

GO STEM Educators: You will be eligible to receive stipends of $60/hour for your time and attendance at these sessions.

Dates: 9/29, 10/27, 12/1, 1/26, 2/23, 3/30, 4/27, 5/25

Time: 4–5pm PST
Location: Zoom

Facilitator: Heather Armstrong, STEM Integration Specialist, Southern Oregon STEM Hub

Funded through the Oregon Mathways Project. Register at this link: https://pdnetworks.soesd.k12.or.us/public/events/view-event/16544

See the flyer for more details here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1svy577WoeXsa_IonHsGu_Zlhy4wUd2gd/view

08/31/2026

Fruit flies are certainly not a good replacement for humans when it comes to brain study, but understanding how their memory works may inform how we store (or lose) information. In a recent study of fruit flies, a training chamber was used to associate a smell with an adverse shock. Fruit flies learned to avoid a particular area in the chamber when they detected a specific odor. Released to another container, the flies lost this memory after 24 hours. The odor had no effect in a different environment. When reintroduced to the training chamber, however, the flies “remembered” the stimulus and avoided the area of adverse effect. Researchers believe the fly brain set down two separate memory tracks: One for immediate application and another that served as a back-up. The back-up track was not accessible unless triggered by certain circumstances. This may explain how humans can forget something until they are in a situation or environment that “jogs” the memory. Perhaps we too have back-ups that are just waiting for the right place and time to return.

Learn more at: https://www.sciencealert.com/ghosts-of-your-memories-may-linger-in-your-brain-even-when-you-think-theyre-forgotten

08/29/2026

The GO STEM team brought hands-on learning to the Morrow County Fair this past weekend, where kids designed and built their own paper airplanes. After decorating their airplanes, they put their designs to the test by flying them through hoops! 🎯

A simple activity turned into an opportunity to design, test, adjust, and try again.

Thank you to Morrow County for inviting us out!

08/29/2026

📣 Attention GO STEM Middle School Math Educators:
Middle School Math Big Ideas - In-Person Professional Learning Community!

Middle school math teachers statewide are invited to elevate their practice through two days of in-person learning centered on four big ideas in middle school mathematics: fractions, proportions, patterns, and data reasoning.

When:
Fractions - Tuesday, Sept 22, 9am–noon
Proportions - Tuesday, Sept 22, 12:30–3:30pm
Patterns - Thursday, Sept 24, 9am–noon
Data Reasoning - Thursday, Sept 24, 12:30–3:30pm

Where: Redmond Library, 327 SW Deschutes Ave, Redmond, OR 97756

Facilitators: Linda Adams & Heather Armstrong

Deadline to register: September 15, 2026 (limited slots - registration confirmed within 3 business days)

GO STEM Educators: We can offer stipends for your participation at $60/hour, as well as cover your lodging and travel to attend. You are invited to attend one day (Fractions and Proportions) or both days (to include Patterns and Data Reasoning). If attending both days, there will be a special middle day (Wednesday) experience for you to attend as well, for a total of 18 PD hours that week.

Please note on the interest form which you will attend: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeH5boHfEyxygDY45NZ_kggujujvIMmfsZ8wtaaBSqlj2yqyg/viewform

Sessions will dig into these core concepts through engagement with the Oregon state standards, Ambitious Math Teaching practices for equitable, discourse-rich instruction, and strategies to revise lessons to increase rigor. Participants can join one or both days, and the group will also be invited into a statewide virtual PLC that continues the work throughout the school year.

Please email [email protected] with any questions!

GO STEM

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