The first pre-college programs that the National Science Foundation (NSF) administered when it restarted pre-college education funding in 1988 included the Young Scholars Program (YSP). The YSP reflected NSF’s intention to reach high-achieving students and to increase the likelihood that they would subsequently enter science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors and the STEM workforce. YSP targeted adolescents, grades 7-12, with summer, weekend, and after-school enrichment programs.

This project will accomplish the exploratory groundwork needed to create Web Adventures Interactive (WAI), a set of interactive educational game websites, to study the effectiveness of the interactive features on science learning, motivation, and interest in science careers.

Many schools include engineering design tasks in the science curriculum as one way to provide opportunities for middle school students to contribute to finding solutions to real-world problems. However, students who attend high needs schools often have few opportunities to make such contributions. This condition exists because sometimes teachers in high needs schools have difficulty creating learning environments where students feel confident enough to engage in the engineering design process.

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase student motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by developing guidelines for teaching and learning about artificial intelligence (AI) in K-12 school settings.

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM).  The Coding Makerspace is providing hands-on digital maker projects and support for boys of color to earn certification in Python, the computer programming language related to cybersecurity.  The Makerspace is also exposing boys of color ages eight and above to research-based and best pr

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM).