Dive Brief:

• The Monsanto Fund has donated $124,995 to Maryville University for the creation of a new robotics curriculum for low-income third and fourth graders.
• The program, Children Using Robotics for Engineering, Science, Technology and Math (CREST-M), will be developed this spring using LEGO WeDo robotics as a basis.
• A two-week summer program will test the curriculum with 80 students and 18 teachers from the Ferguson-Florisssant and Ritenour school districts this July.

Dive Insight:

According to Code.org, only 3.5 million students took the AP Computer Science exam in 2012, and only 3,000 of them were black or Hispanic. Furthermore, data from Education Week shows that some states didn't have a single minority student taking the 2014 AP computer science exam — and in Montana, not a single minority or female took the test. Finding ways to prepare and attract minorities to STEM fields is a major challenge the tech world is currently facing, and getting kids hooked at a young age is great place to start — and using things kids are probably already interested in (robotics and LEGO) is a great approach for sparking that curiosity.