As part of the U.S. government's commitment to Let Girls Learn, First Lady Michelle Obama and the Peace Corps have formed a powerful collaboration to expand access to education for adolescent girls around the world. Educating girls is essential to healthy and thriving communities but, globally, 62 million girls are not in school, and barriers to adolescent girls completing school are particularly significant. In some countries, fewer than 10% of teenage girls complete secondary school. This program will address that challenge by empowering local leaders to put lasting solutions in place. Peace Corps Volunteers who live and work at the grassroots level will serve as catalysts of community-led change, and every American can get involved and make a difference. https://letgirlslearn.peacecorps.gov/ FOR GIRLS' SCHOOLS AND AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAMS FOR GIRLS Let Girls Learn STEM: Elementary Science States of Matter: This science lesson is for young students and older students with special needs. Ice, Water, and Steam Goal: Students will learn about the states of matter through observation and engagement. Objective: Students will physically interact with matter at three different states - solid, liquid, and gas - by identifying snow or ice as a solid, water from melted snow or ice as a liquid, and steam from melted snow or ice as a gas. Outcomes: 1. Student provide information to create a concept map on a white board or other display area showing the three states of matter, using the students’ pictures and/or photographs, and images from the video. 2. Students work collaboratively in small groups or pairs using their collective pictures/photos showing the states of matter to create a “states of matter” timeline. 3. Students make their own picture or video books referring to the concept map and their group discussion timeline.

This PBL project-based unit continues where "When We Couldn't Drink the Water," a unit based on the 2014 Toledo Water Crisis, stopped. WWCDTW reflected all that happened in Ohio's fourth largest city the first weekend in August just weeks before the start of the 2014-2015 school year. This project seeks a solution that will prevent a future water crisis like the one in Toledo. Based on scientific principles and concepts, this project involves students in collaborative research, investigation and experimentation to help them understand processes like algal blooming, denitrification, and bioreactors. Students will be emerged in the ongoing struggle for water quality in the Great Lakes , the cycle of denitrifcation, beaver dam-building, and bioreactors designing and construction. Students with advanced scientific skills and/or gifted students will have differentiation, as well as will students with special needs. Assessments are imbedded. There is also a pretest to assess prior knowledge. A Hands-On Biochemistry PBL Project Goal Students will engage in a PBL project to find a way to keep the algal blooms resulting from the nitrogen in agricultural run-off from farms into the Great Lakes in collaboration with other schools, studying the 2014 Toledo Water Crisis and researching, investigating, and experimenting to find solutions that can be shared through a variety of digital formats. Toledo Water Crisis http://voicethread.com/share/7306686