In an effort to increase the number of American Indians in technical and leadership positions, local tribal communities are pursuing opportunities for their youth to connect with STEM education that is relevant to their community and honors the Tribe's values.

Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has spent the last eight years developing and implementing a comprehensive educational robotics program for youth ages 9-14. The program is delivered in informal (out-of-school) learning environments through robotics camps, clubs, and competitions and has provided robotics experiences to over 5,000 youth and 400 educators.

In October 2011, WestEd and University of California Berkeley’s Career Academy Support Network (CASN) received a three-year collaborative ITEST Strategies grant to improve learning and workforce development in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and in information and communication technology (ICT)—especially for underserved students. The proposed strategy integrates the hands-on science pedagogy of the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program [1] into the multi-year curriculum of the California green high school academies [2]. The GLOBE

One of the most important challenges facing the citizens of the 21st century will undoubtedly be climate change. Yet, understanding about climate change remains problematic for students and teachers, particularly in the United States. Understanding the small fluctuations associated with long term changes in temperature and precipitation is a daunting task for the general public let alone for the middle-aged adolescent. Unfortunately, students may only receive instruction on this general environmental science topic in middle-school and in a general science course during their freshman year of

This qualitative study examines data from eight elementary preservice teachers who transitioned into student teaching after participating in an alternative science methods course that included teaching afterschool science to elementary grade students. These eight participants had a chance to practice teaching inquiry-based science and reform their own thoughts about science teaching and learning through an 8-week afterschool science program situated within their elementary science methods course. Data was collected through observations, reflections, and participant interviews over an academic

Research shows that middle school is an important juncture for a student where he or she starts to be conscious about academic achievement and thinks about college attendance. It is already known that access to financial resources, family background, career aspirations and academic ability are indicative of a student’s choice to attend college; though these variables are interesting, they do not necessarily give sufficient actionable information to instructors or guidance counselors to intervene for individual students. However, increasing numbers of students are using educational software at

In this paper, we investigate the correspondence between student affect in a web-based tutoring platform throughout the school year and learning outcomes at the end of the year, on a high-stakes mathematics exam.

Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow theory states that a balance between challenge and skill leads to high engagement, overwhelming challenge leads to anxiety or frustration, and insufficient challenge leads to boredom. In this paper, we test this theory within the context of student interaction with an intelligent tutoring system. Automated detectors of student affect and knowledge were developed, validated, and applied to a large data set. The results did not match Flow theory: boredom was more common for poorly -known material, and frustration was common both for very difficult material and very easy

The pivotal 2009 National Academy of Engineering report on engineering in K-12 education states that the presence of engineering in pre-college education is an important phenomenon because of engineering’s impact on K-12 STEM education. The NAE report then explores a number of questions about the ways in which engineering is taught in K-12 classrooms, including issues such as the curricular and instructional resources used, interaction with other STEM subjects, and teacher preparation. This paper explores these and related questions surrounding the adoption of non-traditional engineering

This paper will examine a robotics curriculum that is impacting educators and youth in both formal, middle and high school classrooms as well as in a variety of informal learning environments. We have made comparisons between formal and informal learning environments in an effort to understand the varying impacts of this novel program on student learning of science concepts, their skills and abilities in applying engineering design and problem-solving, and their awareness and interest in engineering careers and the individuals who pursue these careers. Data from teachers, informal educators