Students at UC Davis are building a house. Not just any house, but a solar-powered house, one with the potential to be as affordable as it is innovative and, above all, energy efficient.

Children at River Oaks Elementary School in Galt are more than just students. They’re scientists in the classroom and they do what scientists do — observe, ask questions, identify problems, gather data, analyze it and apply this knowledge in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to the real world.

Under sunny skies at Argonaut High School in Jackson, representatives from the Amador County Public Schools system and OpTerra Energy Services recently celebrated the official groundbreaking of the Amador GOLD program. The public-private partnership combines school infrastructure improvement and energy-efficiency projects with STEM education for students.

Take increasing student enrollment. Add economics. Stir both in slowly with the 23-campus California State University system during the past three decades and nowadays you get stark inequality.

With graduation gifts, it’s the thought that counts. The cash is nice, too. 

Equal representation and closing the pay gap for women in academia remains an ongoing issue, as women represent an increasing student demographic at U.S. colleges and universities — but haven’t yet achieved parity as professors or administrators.

In the last 50 years, higher education’s customer base has become decidedly more female. In 1967, 40 percent of college students were women. By 2014, it was 56 percent. The U.S. Department of Education projects that will climb to 59 percent by 2025.

But the people responsible for delivering those educations are still overwhelmingly male.

Lynn Gangone, vice president of ACE Leadership at the American Council on Education, offers her insight into gender equity in academia. For more from Gangone, check out “The New Role Call” in our May issue. Sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you when it’s available online.

As safety fears have led today’s parents to keep their kids indoors — with electronics and television — and as school recess has been on a steady decline, children may be having less opportunity to play. 

Upon receiving her bachelor’s degree in 2014, Monica Sandoval became Future Sacramento’s first student to complete the program and graduate college.

ESM Prep is a gangbuster business. The local company has gone from a small one-man show to an international enterprise, with expanding service offerings and a strong support team in the span of only the past five years.

California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson has spent his career advocating for education issues, from his days as a high school science teacher through his time in the Legislature and now as the state’s top education official. We sat down with him recently to discuss a few critical issues facing California’s schools.

Andrew Hargadon, faculty director of the Mike and Renee Child Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UC Davis, gives his insight into how what it means to be an entrepreneur has changed. For more from Hargadon, check out “It’s Show Time!” in our April issue.

We reached out to some of the rising young professionals featured this month by Comstock’s to find out what one book has made a major difference in their personal or professional journey. Here is what they said:

According to the study “Freelancing in America: 2016,” 53 percent of freelancers have participated in skill-related education or training within the previous six months, which is more than non-freelancers at 39 percent. The study shows that freelancers opt-in to training opportunities to strengthen skills, while non-freelancers are more likely to do it as a job requirement.

When only 10 Girl Scouts nationwide are chosen for the National Young Women of Distinction award, “it’s a big deal” when two of those recipients come from the same regional council. “I don’t know if it’s ever happened before,” says Dr. Linda Farley, CEO of Girl Scouts Heart of Central California.

But it has happened now.

It seems 39 percent of millennials would rather disclose a preexisting sexually transmitted disease to a potential partner than reveal their debt, according to a survey of 2,000 millennials SoFi conducted, using online poller Survey Monkey. In addition, the survey found that serious debt was the second-biggest romantic deal-breaker, after workaholism.

The challenges facing the Sacramento region are not new. Educators and business leaders have spearheaded programs and tapped into grant funding over the years to prepare students for college or a career. But the efforts, they say, have often been disjointed, sometimes overlapped and failed to make a significant impact.