This ITEST Strategies project, engages middle school students in project-based learning around their community's water resources. Through the innovative use of technology the project enables data sharing among schools in different parts of the country and provides a forum for the development of a professional learning community for teachers.

This project innovatively aims to motivate early teens to pursue careers in engineering and computer science through an afterschool program. This program combines these subjects with business entrepreneurship by engaging students in designing computer science and engineering products.

Research studies, commissioned reports, and national and international tests of educational progress in STEM fields show that a large gap exists, in interest and achievement, between underrepresented students and their counterparts.

The FUSE Studios project seeks to engage youth in meaningful ways on sustained pathways towards STEM-related careers and involvement in science in later life. FUSE Studios are organized around sequences of interest-driven challenges involving both digital and hands-on activities that are informed by authentic STEM occupations and practices, and linked together in a progression modeled after computer-game sequences.

To address the needs of the US to increase the ICT workforce with enhanced preparation and a diverse population of prepared secondary students, this strategies ITEST project will strengthen the current regional partnerships in place between secondary schools, the University of Cincinnati's IT and STEM education programs, and local industries.

Nationwide, middle-school youth from underrepresented communities have few opportunities to engage in authentic STEM investigations that build on the students' intrinsic interests in space science and robotics to increase their interests in both ICT and STEM careers.

Given recent advancements in geospatial technologies and the expanding geospatial technology industry, this project is timely in its focus on spatial thinking and strengthening geospatial technology skills among high school students.

In existing CryptoClub after school programs, middle school students use mathematics to make and break secret codes. The CryptoClub website has tools for encrypting, messages to crack, treasure hunts and other activities. In this project, the learning in fifteen Crypto Clubs is extended by having

Embedded in existing computing education and STEM courses, the project-developed curriculum--Scalable Game Design (SGD)--introduces middle school students to computational thinking through game design and advances them to STEM simulation design.

The project aims at helping middle school students understand the relationship between energy, economics, and climate change by monitoring home-energy consumption. Students use energy-monitoring equipment to assess the amount of stand-by power consumed by their home appliances and entertainment