Raytheon Company recently awarded $1 million to the Boston Museum of Science to expand the Engineering is Elementary program to other areas of the U.S.

The funding will be used to build new training hubs and professional development centers in Washington, D.C.; Phoenix, Ariz.; and Huntsville, Ala. The hubs will be used to train elementary school teachers who want to implement the EiE program in the classroom.

The EiE program is a research-based, standards-driven program that uses the basic concepts and skills of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in a classroom-proven curriculum. The program has already been used by more than 27,000 teachers and 2.5 million students.

"By helping teachers bring the basic concepts of engineering and technology to life, they will be able to excite future generations of students to become the innovators of tomorrow," William H. Swanson, chairman and CEO of Raytheon Company, said in a statement. "We share the Museum of Science's desire to accelerate the adoption of its Engineering is Elementary program, and to support teachers throughout the nation who are committed to instilling a passion for STEM among America's young students."

Before you can begin working as a registered nurse, you must obtain the proper training and an associates or bachelors degree from a college, university, or other training program, depending on the type of career you want to pursue.

The courses you take in college will teach you the things you need to know in order to work in a clinical setting. You'll take classes on everything from pharmacology and management to mental health and maternity care.

According to an article by Education-Portal.com, you can expect to take some of the following courses while earning your registered nursing degree:

• Medical-surgical nursing - Learn how to treat adult patients suffering from a number of disorders that can affect major body systems, including respiratory, neurological, musculoskeletal, and renal disorders.
• Nursing pharmacology - Learn about the drugs and medications you'll encounter while treating patients, including those that prevent and treat illness and those used in diagnostics.
• Health promotion course - Learn information about nutrition and disease prevention that you can pass along to patients and their families.
• Mental health nursing - Learn how to diagnose patients with mental health issues and how to develop pharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatment plans.
• Maternity nursing - Learn how to care for pregnant women and their families throughout the childbearing process, including how to deal with high-risk and complicated pregnancies.
• Nursing management - Learn the leadership and interpersonal skills you need in order to direct and supervise other medical staff members.

Autism is a developmental disorder that affects brain functions, mainly those that control social behaviors and communication skills. There has been a huge focus on the disorder as of late, with a push to perform more research and find new treatments.

Occupational therapists are playing an important role in that fight, as they can help prepare people with autism to better participate in daily activities and perform functions that are crucial to daily life.

Occupational therapists who are employed in this line of work typically work for a state's social services or health department, local health centers, hospitals, private clinics, or home health agencies.

According to The American Occupational Therapy Association, occupational therapists are able to help people with autism in the following ways:

• Evaluate a patient to determine whether they have accomplished the developmentally appropriate skills needed.
• Provide interventions that can help those with Autism repsond to information they receive.
• Facilitate play activities that help children learn how to interact and communicate with others.
• Develop strategies to help the individual transition to a new setting, a new person, or a new phase in life.
• Collaborate with the individual and family members to identify safe methods of community mobility.
• Identify, develop, and adapt daily activities that can enhance the individual's quality of life.

The most recent report from Giving USA found that charitable giving increased by 2 percent to $290.9 billion during 2010. Although this isn't a large increase, it's better than the 7 percent and 6.2 percent decreases seen in 2008 and 2009.

Charitable bequests grew the most, up 16.9 percent to $22.8 billion, followed by corporate giving, up 8.8 percent to $15.3 billion. Donations to American groups that work overseas also saw the biggest increase, up 13.5 percent, followed by public-society benefit organizations.

Individuals donated the majority of money received by charities, at about $211.8 billion. The rest of the funding came from corporations and foundations.

"You see people regrowing their philanthropy, but because the economy is growing modestly, the recovery is modest," Patrick Rooney, executive director of the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, said.

In order to get more money from donors in the coming years, Rooney says, fundraisers need to be patient and make sure they clearly communicate the charity's message to potential donors.

“Don’t give up on donors who had to give up on you,” he said. “There may be financial and emotional fallout with donors due to the recession, but if you stick with it over the long term, you may recapture them.”

That generally depends on the type of degree you decide to pursue. Most students earn an Associate Degree in Nursing, which prepares you to work as a registered nurse, or a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, which prepares you for leadership roles as a registered nurse.

The exact classes you will take while earning your degree will depend both on the degree you want to earn and the school you decide to attend, but there are some courses that nearly every nursing student will encounter before they graduate.

According to Education-Portal.com, most students will take some form of the following classes while earning their degree:

• Health Assessment Course - Learn how to perform physical exams on patients in order to determine their state of health.
• Wound Care - Learn how to examine and heal serious wounds, as well as how to prevent and manage everyday wounds.
• End of Life - Learn how to care for elderly or ill patients who are nearing the end of their lives, help patients make afterlife preparations, and provide comfort to grieving family members.
• Healthcare Systems - Learn how our nation's healthcare system works and how it affects people, taxes, government, and insurance.
• Nursing Administration and Organization - Learn how to manage other nurses and patients, as well as how to organize patient care so everyone receives the help they need.
• Family Health Concepts - Learn about communicable diseases and how to prevent them, as well as how to share that knowledge with community members.

Occupational therapists work with people who are suffering from mentally, physically, developmentally, or emotionally disabling conditions that affect their living or working environments. Their overall goal is to help patients obtain an independent and productive lifestyle.

These employees may help patients with everything from daily tasks such as showering to more advanced tasks such as using a computer. Occupational therapists often specialize in working with one type of disability or one age group.

In order to become an occupational therapist, you must first earn an undergraduate degree, and then go on to earn at least a master's degree from a school recognized by the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education. You then must pass a national licensing examination before you can begin working.

There were about 104,500 occupational therapists throughout America during 2008, and that number is expected to increase by an impressive 26 percent by 2018, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In Arizona, a total of 281 occupational therapy jobs should be created between 2008 and 2018, making for an increase of 16.7 percent. This is great news for job seekers, as there will be an average of 59 job openings every year, according to the Arizona Workforce Informer.

The majority of occupational therapists, about 29 percent, work in ambulatory healthcare services, while others work in hospitals, health practitioners' offices, educational services, nursing care facilities, home healthcare services, outpatient care centers, physicians offices, individual and family services, community care facilities for the elderly, and the government.

The top 10 industries that employed occupational therapists in Arizona during 2008 include:

1. General medical and surgical hospitals - 19 percent
2. Elementary and secondary schools - 16.8 percent
3. Offices of other health practitioners - 13.8 percent
4. Nursing care facilities - 10.2 percent
5. Home healthcare services - 7.8 percent
6. Vocational rehabilitation services - 7.8 percent
7. Other hospitals - 3.3 percent
8. Community care facilities for the elderly - 2.4 percent
9. Employment services - 2 percent
10. Management of companies and enterprises - .9 percent

The national median wage for occupational therapists during 2008 was $66,780 per year. The middle 50 percent of employees earned between $55,090 per year and $81,290 per year, while the bottom 10 percent earned less than $42,820 per year, and the top 10 percent earned more than $98,310 per year.

The average wage throughout Arizona in 2009 was $31.23 per hour, with entry-level employees earning about $17.31 per hour, and experienced employees earning roughly $38.19 per hour.

Rep. Ron Kind and Sen. Tom Harkin recently reintroduced the Fitness Integrated with Teaching Kids Act, a bill aimed at increasing physical education programs in schools in an effort to combat childhood obesity and other common health problems.

The FIT Kids Act would make sure that children are active during the school day and that they are able to learn about health and wellness. It also would require all school districts and states to report on student's physical activity.

Aside from ensuring that children stay healthy, the measure also calls for the appropriate professional development of health and physical education teachers. It also provides funding to research the link between a child's health and academic achievement and ways to combat childhood obesity.

"With childhood obesity rates that have tripled over the last few decades, we must make every effort to help children reduce their risk for heart disease, stroke and other life-threatening illnesses," Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association, said in a statement. "More than 80 percent of adults support daily physical education yet such programs have been on the decline in many school districts. The FIT Kids Act would help educate parents about the quality and quantity of physical education in their child’s school."

To date, the FIT Kids Act has been endorsed by:

• The American Diabetes Association
• The American Heart Association
• National Association for Sport and Physical Education
• Grocery Manufacturers Association
• National Football League
• Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association
• YMCA

The Missing in America Project works with a number of private, state, and federal organizations to uncover the identities of fallen soldiers. The nonprofit corporation is aimed at honoring and respecting the people who serve our country in military jobs by making sure they receive a proper funeral service.

Since its founding in 2007, the MIA Project has worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs, American Legion, other volunteer service and veteran organizations, local funeral homes, state funeral commissions, and state and national veterans cemetery administrations to set up funerals for fallen soldiers.

Dignity Memorial is just one of the funeral homes that has participated in the MIA Project. Dignity Memorial is the largest provider of funeral, cremation, and cemetery services in North America. The company provides care for more than 300,000 families each year.

"This will be a lengthy project and will require many man-hours to ensure that we have done our utmost to discover every forgotten veteran and procure each a dignified resting place," the MIA Project states on its website. "This will also be a labor of love, a task of redemption, for a debt of service that can never be repaid."

After this goal is met, the MIA Project plans to create a network of people to work with funeral homes and state and national agencies to ensure that in the future any unclaimed veteran will be identified and given a proper funeral service.

The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services has awarded two Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project grants worth $300,000 to ExonHit Therapeutics. The funding will be used to support two research and development projects dealing with Alzheimer's disease and oncology research.

The programs chosen for funding include the AclarusDx in Alzheimer's disease and the EHT 107 program in oncology. In order to receive funding, ExonHit had to prove that its projects had the potential to result in new therapies to treat areas of unmet medical needs.

"We are excited to benefit from these grants as they are a recognition of the potential medical benefit of AclarusDx™ and the EHT 107 program," Matthew Pando, PhD, executive vice president of therapeutics at ExonHit Therapeutics, said. "These awards also further highlight the ability of our Genome-Wide SpliceArray™ discovery platform to generate both innovative diagnostic and therapeutic products. These grants will contribute to support the ongoing development of two programs targeting areas of high medical need."

Paris-based ExonHit Therapeutics is a therapeutics and diagnostics company using its technology to develop innovative molecular diagnostic tests and therapeutics for Alzheimer's disease and cancer.

The Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project Program was created as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. The program is aimed at supporting growth and innovation in biotechnology, as well as creating and sustaining biotech jobs in America.

At the end of last year, U.S. News & World Report named marriage and family therapists as one of the 50 Best Careers of 2010. Jobs included on the list cover a broad range of industries and a variety of educational requirements

Marriage and family therapists work with couples, families, or individuals to examine the mental health issues that take place within a family. They may address such problems as adult schizophrenia, substance abuse, anorexia, or marital conflict.

There are currently more than 1.8 million people receiving some form of treatment from a marriage and family therapist. The occupation is now considered to be a core mental health profession, along with social work, psychiatric nursing, psychology, and psychiatry.

Employment of marriage and family therapists is expected to increase by 14 percent between 2008 and 2018. That growth will in part come from a more widespread acceptance of the occupation causing more people to seek counseling.

Applicants who have a doctorate degree or a higher-level degree will have a better chance of getting hired for a marriage and family therapist position. This level of degree also makes it easier for employers to take on management positions or become teachers or researchers.

Marriage and family therapists work in a variety of settings, including prisons, universities, inpatient facilities, and private practices. The median salary for this occupation is $45,000, with the bottom 10 percent of workers earning less than $28,000 per year and the top 10 percent of employees earning more than $71,000 per year.

The top 10 Best Careers of 2010 include:

1. X-Ray technician
2. Veterinarian
3. Meteorologist
4. Computer software engineer
5. Firefighter
6. Special education teacher
7. Financial adviser
8. Meeting planner
9. Funeral director
10. Multimedia artist

The list was compiled based on data from the U.S. Department of Labor's job growth projections for 2008 to 2018. The jobs that were chosen are expected to grow faster than average and pay an above-average median income.