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.  Estimates of employments rates for adults with visual impairments range from 30% to 38% and these individuals are underrepresented in STEM fields.  The goal of this proje

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) by developing, testing, and disseminating tools and strategies for increasing awareness of STEM-related careers among high school students with disabilities.

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.

The goals of the project are to motivate the participation of middle school students in urban and rural settings to pursue STEM and computing (STEM+C) careers. The project will develop an integrated curriculum that supports the learning of computing and engineering fundamentals through the underlying mathematics concepts. The after-school learning experiences focus on authentic work of computer engineers, student learning about computer programming, engineering design, and mathematics concepts.

The Literacy for Engineering Access and Participation Conference (LEAP) would convene researchers and teachers from the engineering education, literacy education, equity and other stakeholder areas to establish a research agenda and gather resources related to the literacy considerations for informal and formal learning settings. The conference participants will learn about engineering and literacy perspectives that impact students' learning with a particular emphasis on multi-lingual students and engaging a more diverse student population in engineering.

There has been a strong push to expand the opportunities for students to experience Computer Science (CS) instruction in schools across the nation. To support the work at the federal, state, local levels and engage others in the effort, there is a need for coordination across these sectors. The current complex landscape does not have a central organization or connection point, thereby leaving many local education agencies (LEAs) unsure of how to proceed.

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 investigating ways to make science assessment and science instruction more culturally relevant to Native Hawaiians.

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.

The three-year "COMmunities Educating Tomorrow's Scientists (COMETS)" project is implementing an earth and space science program with the focus of learning science as inquiry through Marshall University, with partners NASA IV&V Educator Resource Center, Kanawha County Schools, Bayer Crop Science Corporation, and the West Virginia Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences. COMETS targets 200 low-income, underrepresented and minority students at five community centers in Charleston, WV, for inclusion in a NASA-centered informal science education program.

The project will research the effects of single-gender computer science (CS) camps and gender aligned role models within that context. During the past 30 years, there has been a decrease of women earning computer science degrees and entering the CS workforce. To reverse this trend, there has been a surge of girls only programs for recruiting and mentoring girls in CS. Despite their popularity, however, there exists only minimal research on the efficacy of these programs to grow the population of women in CS and little is known about the most effective ways to implement these programs.