Inspiring the Next Generation of Environmental Scientists

Watch these three videos made by ITEST project GreenTECH!  These videos give you insight into environmental engineering.  In the first video, meet Adam, a mechanical engineer who works in an NYC power plant.  The second video features Team Reakter, a team of green battery experts.  Finally, the last video features Levi and Ozgem, two energy activists, who will show you how to get your community excited about saving energy.

This paper focuses on ITEST projects that center on authentic inquiries into locally relevant issues.

Engaging young science learners today requires a plethora of tools that oftentimes leverages technology in novel ways. This paper describes the use of several 21st century technologies to engage science learners in locally relevant climate science research projects and the presentation of these projects in an entirely online virtual student conference. Case studies demonstrating the use of and effectiveness of 21st century technologies and GLOBE protocols are also included.

In this white paper we describe youth engagement in cyber-rich science in a community setting, involving both knowledge/practice development and identity work through scientifically rigorous, culturally responsive, and generative activities.

EcoScienceWorks (ESW) is an ecology curriculum that includes targeted simulations and a code block programming challenge developed through an NSF-ITEST grant.

This article describes Energy for ME and Going Green! Middle Schoolers Out to Save the World, two Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education programs with the common goal of improving students’ attitudes about scientific careers.

The Climate Change Attitude Survey is composed of 15 Likert-type attitudinal items selected to measure students’ beliefs and intentions toward the environment with a focus on climate change.

Each MOSART assessment instrument comprises a set of multiple-choice items that are linked to the K–12 physical science and earth science content, and K–8 life science content in the NRC National Science Education Standards, as well as to the research literature documenting misconceptions concerning science concepts.

As part of ITEST project From Learning to Research (L2R), teachers from both cohorts one and two met to discuss needed resources for the classroom to aid with the development of locally-relevant climate research projects.

The Middle Schoolers Out to Save the World (MSOSW) curriculum uses data gathered by students to develop optimum scenarios for conserving energy and reducing the global production of greenhouse gases.

The Earth Exploration Toolbook is a collection of computer-based Earth science activities that high school and college teachers can incorporate into their teaching. Each activity, or chapter, introduces one or more data sets and an analysis tool that enables users to explore some aspect of the Earth system.  Users can search for chapters by Earth system topic or tool.