There is a clear need for a diverse, skilled, and culturally competent science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and information and communications technology (ICT) workforce. Further, the STEM/ICT workforce increasingly recognizes that solutions to the world’s most pressing problems must be developed collaboratively on a global level.

This project will broaden participation in STEM for blind and visually impaired (BVI) and sighted upper elementary students through engagement with podcast technology. BVI individuals are significantly underrepresented in the STEM workforce. Research has shown that BVI students face many obstacles in pursuing education pathways to STEM fields, beginning in early education. These obstacles include negative attitudes of both students and teachers regarding the ability for BVI persons to engage in STEM careers, and the lack of BVI-accessible STEM resources in classrooms.

This project will host a workshop in order to identify and synthesize research findings from NSF awards that addressed the unanticipated effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on STEM teaching and learning. The interruptions from the pandemic had dramatic, widespread effects in education. Across the nation, teachers, students, parents, staff, and school administrators experienced extended school closures and a rapid and unexpected shift to virtual instruction.

The development of spatial orientation (SO) skills – the ability to identify the position of objects in space – is a strong predictor of math skills and later school success and academic achievement. However, even with the increasing evidence in the importance of SO skills for children, they are rarely included in kindergarten and primary school curriculum. This puts children at a severe learning disadvantage; children who lag behind their peers in school-entry mathematical skills are at high risk to continue to do so.

This project aims to serve the national interest by providing national leadership in science education pre-K through adulthood within informal and formal settings (K-16).  The overarching goal is to advance efforts to better understand and promote practices that increase student motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics.  Through consensus studies, workshops, and other public meetings, coupled with innovative approaches to communication and stakeholder engagement, the Board on Science Education leverages NSF's invest

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) by engaging in hands-on field experience, laboratory/project-based entrepreneurship tasks and mentorship experiences.

This is a collaborative proposal among the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), Virginia Tech, and Purdue University, submitted to the Successful Project Expansion and Dissemination strand of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program.

Advanced manufacturing technologies, such as 3D printing, are transforming design and several fields of engineering. This innovative project will use 3D technology to help students learn about science and engineering through the history of inventions in the United States. As part of science and engineering classes, middle and high-school students will use 3D printing technology to recreate historically significant inventions, using digitized versions from the Smithsonian Institution (e.g., the Wright brothers' airplane - http://3d.si.edu).

Nationwide, middle-school youth from underrepresented communities have few opportunities to engage in authentic STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) investigations that build on the students' intrinsic interests in space science and robotics to increase their interests in both ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and STEM careers. ITEAMS II is a collaborative project of science educators and researchers at the Harvard College Observatory and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

The GIS Resources and Applications for Career Education (GRACE) project builds upon a recent NSF-funded project, the Mayors Youth Technology Corps (MYTC), that developed a model of geographic information systems and technology (GIS/T) based education. MYTC developed a model of purposeful applications of GIS/T-based education for STEM careers in the workplace that provided youth in economically disadvantaged communities experience using and applying GIS/T to real world situations.