The increasing sophistication and availability of Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) technologies wield the potential to transform how we teach and learn computational concepts and coding. This project develops a platform for creative coding in virtual and augmented reality. The Embodied Coding Environment (ECE) is a node-based system developed in the Unity game engine. It is conceptualized as a merged digital/physical workspace where spatial representations of code, the visual outputs of the code, and user editing histories are co-located in a virtual 3D space.

This project is a multiyear study of the impact of an enrichment program that the US National Science Foundation (NSF) managed in the 1990s. The Young Scholars Program (YSP) involved around 18,000 7th–12th grade students and 600 separate grants between 1989 and 1996. The purpose of YSP was to introduce high-achieving middle and secondary school students to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields to encourage their entry into those fields and thus increase the size and quality of the nation’s STEM workforce.

Healthcare is becoming robotics reliant. Hands-on learning of assistive and rehabilitation robotics in meaningful contexts such as improving quality of life will broaden the participation of underrepresented students including females and ethnic minorities.

The project's central goals are threefold: (1) to provide access to meaningful bilingual computer programming and mathematics (CPM) experiences to Latinx middle school students, (2) to develop a bilingual CPM curriculum based on Python and Jupyter Notebook to provide visual representations of mathematics concepts, and 3) to prepare and work with teachers through interdisciplinary teams and action research to integrate CPM into the school curriculum. 

This project aims to adapt the Geospatial Semester for Career and Technical Education in a large urban district through effective teacher professional development and lesson design.

Project eSPAC3 aims to develop upper-elementary students’ spatial computational thinking skills and awareness of computationally-intensive careers by designing an immersive Latinx culturally affirming enactive learning experience in Minecraft Education Edition which emphasizes family engagement, near-peer mentorship, peer collaboration and expert modeling.

The goal for the STEM Career Connections project is to develop an innovative career readiness model for both in and out of school settings that will profoundly increase the knowledge of, and interest in, STEM  and computing careers for middle school youth in a rural mountain community who are often underserved in STEM fields.

In this project students use augmented reality to learn science content and then create augmented reality to demonstrate their learning and understanding.  By exposing students to AR in core science courses all students take (such as biology), students typically underrepresented in STEM and computer science will increase interest and motivation to explore those career pathways.  

The AAMASE project is developing and researching a model for engaging high-school-aged African American women from low-income families in STEM-related making and entrepreneurship educational programs.

The major objectives of the UNLV ITEST project are to: 1) enhance secondary female students’ academic self-concept in computing and engineering fields through a constructivist learning environment; 2) enhance secondary female students’ knowledge, skills, and interests in these fields; 3) increase the number of secondary female students’ participation in STEM competitions; 4) investigate the factors that influence female students’ career choices in STEM/ICT fields.