The Real World Externships project provides professional development for 150 mathematics and science teachers in grades 7-12 in Iowa. The teachers participate in externships with local science-based industries for six weeks during the summer. Teachers learn current applications of science and mathematics that they can use to enhance their teaching.

The Robot Algebra Project creates three scalable, middle school level units for use in informal settings. The units are designed around fundamental robot movement concepts but emphasize proportional reasoning - a big idea in mathematics. There are over 12,000 FIRST Lego League teams across the U.S. that purport to use robots as a motivator to engage students in STEM. However, most of the time the students use guess and check procedures thwarting the opportunity to learn STEM content.

The purpose of this project is to increase students' achievement and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) or information and communication technology (ICT) careers. The project is working with four rural school districts to provide teacher professional development and implement research-based curriculum modules for two mathematics educational software packages in geometry (Geometer's Sketchpad) and statistics and probability (Fathom).

SCI-TALKS (Supporting Community Initiatives for Teaching, Learning, and Knowing Science), an ITEST strategies project, is designed to deliver after-school energy and environment (EE) education programs in community settings for rural low-income upper elementary students in West Virginia. The goal of SCI-TALKS is to provide pre-service and in-service teachers with professional development and technology resources to ensure that their students build workforce readiness skills through EE education program.

Society's Grand Challenges for Engineering (GCE) is the backdrop of this particular project as it works to develop socially-relevant engineering curricular modules for middle school instruction in STEM. The project team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison consists of engineering and education faculty, along with 23 middle school teachers and guidance counselors from 5 rural and urban public schools who are collaborating to design and test curricular modules and career exploration activities.

This project will enable high school and middle school STEM teachers and students to conduct environmental research aided by the analysis of images from digital cameras, scanners, and the Internet. The project explores how digital image analysis can be applied to environmental quality issues that can readily be introduced into STEM courses, engaging students and encouraging them to think about related careers. The project will develop research agendas that will employ a variety of image analysis tools.

The primary goal of the STEM Teams strategies project is to build a bridge from isolated middle schools in rural NC to the high tech resources at research universities, to effectively teach STEM (science, mathematics, & technology) content and instill an understanding of the potential of STEM careers. The middle school teachers in the selected schools will be supported by an administrative team to guide, coach, and empower the teachers to make the most of the resources.

Studio STEM employs active, inquiry-based learning through engineering design activities to promote conceptual change and problem solving techniques using information and communications technology (ICT). The project aims to engage and encourage rural Appalachian middle grade students to pursue STEM using fundamental concepts in energy conservation and sustainability through an informal design-based studio. This setting allows students to creatively explore and share problems and solutions by documenting their experiences using personal blogs.

The proposed study, Transforming Interests into STEM Careers (TISC), will test a model for promoting a STEM college-going culture in two high schools. The main goal of the intervention model is to encourage adolescents to pursue STEM majors in college and occupations in these fields. The study's focus is upon understanding the various factors that determine young students' interests in STEM disciplines and their entry into actual STEM careers. The study design includes four schools (two rural and two urban), all of which have lower than expected college going rates.