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2024 NSF ITEST PI Meeting Project Summaries
Welcome to the ITEST Project Summaries Library! These one page artifacts were created to share information and unpack project work across the three ITEST pillars 1) Innovative Use of Technology in Teaching and Learning, 2) Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation, and 3) Strategies for Equity in STEM Education.
We invite you to search, filter, and explore these pages—and add comments to engage with your colleagues!
SISTEM is supporting PreK students’ integrated science, language, and literacy learning by creating a coherent model of family-school-community partnership with a focus on multilingual learner’s (MLs). EDC and the Connecticut Science Center (CSC) are collaborating to engage children, families, teachers, and the community to form powerful partnerships that fuel children’s science and language learning across multiple settings. The project aims to enrich the quality and quantity of science and…
Three universities (Lehigh, Texas Christian, and Washington State University Tri-Cities) are collaborating with teachers at nine high schools to integrate GIS into core curricular content areas (Environmental Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geography, and more; including special education settings) and specialized classes (Robotics, Forensics, and so on). Our work with teachers spans technical instruction (learning about GIS), curriculum development (co-designing materials for the…
Data visualizations are emerging as ways to examine and “see” literary texts in new ways by making salient the countable and quantifiable features of a book, story, or other composition. Taking seriously the potential for literary literacy and data literacy to be complementary and mutually supportive in interpretive work, this project involves cycles of co-design with middle school English language arts teachers to bring text analytics visualizations into their classroom instruction through new…
The project aims to integrate paleontology and machine learning (ML), a subfield of artificial intelligence (AI), to develop a curriculum for middle school teachers and students. Teachers attend a weeklong professional development workshop at the University of Florida to learn about AI and gain experience with the curriculum before implementing it. Over three cohorts, approximately 50 teachers will be recruited to participate in the project and to implement curricular activities in their…
Advances in AI are fundamentally reshaping the workplace of the future and accelerating the demand for creating and sustaining an AI-literate workforce. This demand highlights the importance for all K-12 students to develop an understanding of AI to prepare them for future careers. The AI Play project introduces AI concepts to middle grades students (ages 11-14) and teachers through workshops, camps, and school-based programs in rural communities of North Carolina. With a focus on fostering…
The Youth Astronomy Network (YouthAstroNet for short) is a national, online community of youth, educators, and scientists that aims to help youth gain confidence and identity as someone who can do science through personal participation in authentic inquiry, supported by unique access to the resources of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. Young people in every neighborhood, urban or rural, have questions about the universe. But many youth, particularly those in underserved…
The STEM Storytelling through Podcasts (SSP) project focuses on broadening participation for blind and low vision and sighted upper elementary students by engaging them with podcast technology to promote access to STEM and introduce students to STEM/ICT careers.
The Computer Science Frontiers (CSF) curriculum created during this project aims to expand access, especially for high school girls, to the most exciting and emerging frontiers of computing, such as machine learning, as well as other 21st century skills required to productively leverage computational methods and tools. The project-based curriculum consists of four 9-week modules: Distributed Computing, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, Cybersecurity/Internet of Things, and Software…
This project uses tech and a place-based, community-engaged approach to examine attitudes toward STEM. Initially focused on student, teacher and community attitudes and behaviors, pandemic-related timeline and implementation adjustments provided an opportunity to also examine how we engaged with each other and with community members in three rural Alaska sites. Questions: How does a place-based STEM curriculum engage students, educators and communities to envision/apply STEM in different…
This project uses drones in middle school science and career and technical education classrooms as a mechanism to increase female students awareness of STEM occupations, knowledge and skills in multiple STEM disciplines, and motivation to pursue STEM careers. This project confronts society's messaging and students' own perceptions of who can be, should be, and is good at STEM, which is often reinforced by the notion of there being a single path into STEM. The project will encourage…