STELAR recently had the opportunity to interview Jill Zande from the MATE ROV Competitions: Providing Pathways to the Ocean STEM Workforce project to learn more about the project’s current work. The MATE ROV project just held its annual international competition at the end of June.

What role does community, family, and culture play in the motivation to learn? What motivates young people to participate in STEM learning experiences? What do these experiences teach them about STEM educational and career paths?

When I mention my work with the Center for Innovative Research in Cyberlearning (CIRCL), people often ask, “So, what exactly is cyberlearning?” It’s a good question with a broad answer.

STELAR recently had the opportunity to interview Ruth Kermish-Allen from the ITEST Project Energy for ME to learn more about the program's impact. Energy for ME is an energy education program of the Island Institute, involving ten island and coastal communities.

On April 2, 2014 the STEM Learning and Resource Center (STELAR) hosted an outreach event to introduce the goals of STELAR, celebrate the launch of our website, and to make new connections in conjunction with the NSTA conference in Boston.

Today’s world is a global marketplace driven by technology. Rapid advances in technology have changed both the work we do and how we do it. With the new affordances of the “cyberinfrastructure” we now have access to vast amounts of information online. We also have very sophisticated tools, such as visualization tools that help us see things that are not visible to the naked eye—for example, what protein folding looks like—that we can use to advance medical and scientific research.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has selected EDC to continue its role as the resource center for the ITEST (Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers) program.