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). For these students with visual impairments (VI), the possibility of a future in astronomy, or any science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) field, seems daunting.

In the wake of COVID-19, Greater Cleveland’s low-income families need a stronger pathway out of poverty. Cleveland’s residents are getting poorer: the city’s overall poverty rate reached 34.6% in 2018, up from 27% in 2006. For children, that rate reached 50.9%, up from 41.9% in 2006.

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.

Digispired (Digitally Inspired) is a three-year project to provide 90 urban and rural low-income middle school students with opportunities to learn computer programming (i.e. C++), computer animation and digital imaging to create interactive games. Students will be recruited from Halifax, Hopewell and Prince Edward Schools of the Southside Virginia Regional technology consortium. Students will receive 144 hours of instruction per year (80 hours in the summer and at least 64 hours on Saturdays during the school year).

DAPCEP's youth-based Engineering and Information Technology Education Project aims to engage students in activities that will increase their access to IT within the context of engineering and increase their opportunities to explore related college and career paths. One hundred twenty African American and Latino 7th and 9th grade students and 180 parents participate in carefully planned courses designed to expand their knowledge of engineering and to lay the foundation for successful lifelong learning related to a range of IT.

The DesignIT Studios youth-based project creates four IT studio sites to work with 160 7th and 8th grade students. The four project sites—a central site at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, sites at each of two Boys and Girls Club branches, and a site at an area school—infuse digital technology and science, math, and engineering concepts into a creative art studio environment. Projects, springing from the children’s own cultural backgrounds and interests, incorporate commonplace materials with digital media to naturally create fluency in IT.

The Environmental Science Information Technology Activities (ESITA) youth-based project provides opportunities for students in grades 9 and 10 from disadvantaged backgrounds to learn about and use IT. During each of three years, 48 students will acquire and employ IT skills as they conduct air and water quality research in their communities and research attitudes toward, and feelings about, IT among their peers.

The Science Museum of Minnesota’s youth-based ITEST program engages inner city teens in creating a learning community for STEM education through creative technology projects led by adult professionals in sciences and the arts.

OMSI’s Salmon Camp Research Team is a youth-based advanced technology and natural science career exposure and training program offered in a year-round, multi-year format. It annually serves 180 reservation, rural, and urban secondary school students with Native American community affiliations and very low representation in IT-related career fields. The students work with researchers on computer modeling of complex ecological, hydrological, and geological problems.

Arizona State University (ASU) in collaboration with Arizona Science Center, Boeing, Intel, Microchip, Motorola, Salt River Project, AZ Foundation for Resource Education, AZ Game & Fish Department, US Partnership for the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, Mesa Public Schools, and Boys & Girls Clubs of the East Valley, offer a three-year extracurricular project resulting in IT/STEM-related learning outcomes for 96 participants in grades 7, 8, and 9.