Data from the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering shows the U.S. is not producing enough engineers to meet future demand. And they say engineers being produced do not reflect the nation’s increasing racial diversity. Non-Hispanic whites still comprise the largest group of STEM workers, while Non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic workers are half as likely as all workers to have STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) jobs. But efforts are being made to rectify this. The National Society of Black Engineers hosted a site for the Summer Engineering Experience for Kids Academy (SEEK) for 3rd through 5th graders at Maxwell Elementary School in Denver, this Summer. KGNU's Rachel Sapin went along and brings us a report.

National Society of Black Engineers Hosts First STEM Program in Denver

RobBurstein_ConeyIslandBoardwalk

North Williamsburg is best known by some these days as a party spot. But just a few blocks down from the bars of Bedford Avenue, something is fading from the neighborhood amid changing demographics: traditional, older churches. Here’s a look at why some houses of worship in Williamsburg are shutting down while others survive. 

Photo by Rachel Sapin. All rights reserved.

A Borough of Churches

The Jalopy Theater has been lauded as a folk mecca in Brooklyn pretty much since it opened its doors in the summer of 2007. In addition to hosting the Brooklyn Folk Festival every year, the 160-year-old Red Hook storefront features weekly old-timey jams on its vaudevillian stage. 

Jalopy is also a breeding ground for new local bands. Many get their start in the Jalopy school where classes are taught in banjo, fiddle, and singing, to name few. 

I sat in on a fiddle class at Jalopy in November and learned from Adam Moss how a traditional folk ballad is passed on. 

A Fiddle Lesson At Jalopy in Brooklyn

Name a corner on Carroll Gardens in South Brooklyn and Joe Igneri has probably hung out there.

The 50-year-old Carroll Gardens native has lived on these blocks his entire life. On a small stretch of Henry Street, he now manages the Pozzallo Society, one of the oldest organizations of its kind for Italians in Brooklyn. In its heyday during the mid-1950s and ’60s, the Pozzallo Society had around 500 members. Its numbers have dwindled to a little more than 200 today.

But the culture from the sandy shores of the Sicilian province of Pozzallo is preserved in the card games and the espressos in the society’s long, wood-paneled room. This is what Igneri strives to keep going in a changing neighborhood. Luckily, he has the help of newer residents, like 30-year-old Ryan Lucas who owns a cafe next door. While Lucas hasn’t won the men of Pozzallo over to his artisanal coffee, he still looks up to these remaining Italian stalwarts and wants them to stick around.


You Gotta Know These Guys

Fully self-sustainable homes known as Earthships have existed since the 1970s on the fringes of American cities and in towns where land is plentiful.  Their most prominent communities exist in Taos, New Mexico. 

But Denver/Boulder area residents are trying to change that. They want to make these unusual structures a fixture along the Front Range's metro skyline as well. 

Despite the enthusiastic reception among many residents for more sustainable homes in the city, Earthships face a unique battle with Denver’s Community Planning and Development Department as they are homes that can exist entirely off of a municipal grid.  

Hear what these Denver/Boulder residents had to say about Earthships. 

--More Earthship photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66922993@N06/sets/72157632963969033/

Earthships Attempt to Make Their Way to Denver

Warm Cookies of the Revolution is a new organization in Denver working to get people to exercise their civic health much like they do their mental and physical health. In February, the group hosted an event called a Civic Stitch N’Bitch, that brought people from all walks of life together in the McNichols Building in Denver to talk about topics ranging from The Dream Act to Facebook. Here's an audio postcard from the event.

See photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66922993@N06/sets/72157633081240997/

Learn more about Warm Cookies of the Revolution at Facebook.com/warmcookiesoftherevolution

Denver's Civic Stitch 'N Bitch

April 29, 2013-Denver-Auraria campus custodians, students, faculty, and concerned citizens marched on the Auraria campus denouncing undignified working conditions. 

See more photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66922993@N06/sets/72157633383382978/