President Obama Welcomes Young Inventors to the White House Science Fair

Science Fair winners from all over the United States recently displayed their wares at the White House. Young inventors and innovators from all across the nation gathered together for the third White House Science Fair. President Barack Obama addressed the students after viewing the exhibits and interacting with the young scientists. Also present were Bill Nye, the celebrity science host and educator and actor LeVar Burton, star of the science fiction show “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

The power and potential of science

The Obama administration has been strongly supporting STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). In 2009, the President announced the first ever White House Science Fair. He opened the White House to young persons who got to come up with the best design, hardware, software, or experiment and invited young achievers to pursue their science dreams.

The group that populated the White House this year included youngsters still not old enough to drive but are already building rockets and designing video games. They are also young app-coders and urban planners and they were all at the White House explaining their inventions and experiments to visitors headed by the President of the United States Barack Obama.

Impressive exhibit

This year cooling pads for football players, algae that produce oil, a bicycle that powers an emergency water filtration system, and portable windmills were just some of the exhibits that were presented inside the White House State Dining Room and other public rooms as well as outside at the South Lawn. More than 30 science projects were displayed and President Obama went around in order to see for himself what the young scientists had to offer.

The impressive array of exhibits included a prosthetic arm worth which cost only $250 to build, a robot that uses watercolors to paint, and an affordable cloud computing software designed to detect pancreatic cancer.

In his speech the President congratulated the students for their achievements. He congratulated the parents, advisers, and teachers in the audience as well. And addressing the students directly, he said, “We could not be prouder of all of you.”

Commitment to supporting STEM initiatives

President Obama also announced his intention to expand initiative, both private and federal so that children are encouraged to study STEM subjects. In fact in his budget request for the next fiscal year he allotted $180 million for increased STEM programs participation. Another $265 million is designated for the financing of support networks dedicated to furthering STEM education.

The President declared his commitment to providing students the resources that they would need in pursuit of careers in science, technology, engineering, and math. The President said that it was time to step up in terms of research and development not seen by Americans since the peak of the space race. “That’s our obligation,” said President Obama.

In a separate occasion, the White House has also announced that there would be additional efforts to provide more opportunities for low income families, military families, members of the minority, and female students.