This project focuses on new areas and technologies within the rapidly changing Biological Sciences. The mentoring program targets underrepresented youth and will serve 120 10th to 12th grade students over three years (three cohorts of 40 each), providing one year of preparatory courses, a summer institute for career exploration and lab orientation, and a second year of authentic research with an AMNH scientist mentor.

The Miami Science Museum (MSM) is collaborating with the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) and Miami Dade College (MDC), to implement Digital WAVE, an ITEST Strategies project that will design, implement and investigate use of the emerging 3D Web to stimulate interest in information and communication technologies. Through the fabrication of 3D virtual simulations related to global warming phenomena, the project will create and test a new model and medium for engaging and preparing youth to pursue IT-intensive science careers.

This Strategies project, from the Morehouse School of Medicine, will engage 60 high school students in carrying out a multi-faceted out-of-school time (OST) intervention program focused on information communication technology (ICT), neuroscience, and entrepreneurship. In this project, Promoting Our Worth as Entrepreneurs and Researchers in Innovative Technology (POWER-IT) Georgia high school students learn advanced ICT and Neuroscience.

This strategies project develops a program combining in-school mentoring with out of school informal education experiences involving the use of three types of mentors; college students, STEM professionals, and volunteers from the participant group community. The project targets Native American and Hispanic students in grades 3 - 8. The project recruits, trains and retains a minimum of 60 mentors during the 3 year project. Mentors from the three groups including members of the Pascua Yaqui Native American community and tribal members are paired with like numbers of mentees.

The Barcode of Life Initiative (BOLI) is an international biodiversity collaboration that creates a genetic encyclopedia of Earth's plants and animals using short DNA sequences that uniquely identify species groups. The goal of this strategies project is to interest students in STEM careers by engaging them in an international project to provide identification of biological species.

The University of Texas (UT) Cockrell School of Engineering is joining with Skillpoint Alliance, a Central Texas education and workforce development agency, and Round Rock ISD, a rapidly growing district serving a diverse population of more than 40,000 students, to deploy an integrated approach to engaging middle school students, teachers, counselors, administrators, parents and caregivers in activities that improve awareness and understanding of a range of STEM career and college pathways.

The project leaders will guide high school students through a mathematics-based, programming experience which prepares them to subsequently teach mathematics and programming to middle school students. Using a "drag and drop" programming language, the participants will explore mathematical concepts. Products of the project will include two modules, the first using video games based on existing mathematics games and the second using simulations to explore social issues.

Tenth grade students in high schools in Nashville, Tennessee choose among four to seven career academies. Despite a needs analysis that demonstrates the several occupations in Nashville require a STEM background, the results of a survey show that most students are choosing arts and communications career academies rather than STEM-related ones.

CAPSULE, a capstone project-based learning model, brings the STEM/IT workforce experience to high school students and teachers through industry-driven projects and multimedia production. Materials developed at the Museum of Science and real-world problems solicited from local industry are formulated as projects to be used in a hands-on capstone elective course or in after school activities so that students can relate STEM concepts covered in the classroom to real world applications and learn the engineering design process (EDP).

Project CincySTEM will enhance cutting-edge science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education for minority students enrolled in the new Hughes STEM High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. Over a three-year period, the project will directly impact more than 900 minority students through CincySTEM activities (around big ideas such as energy) that focus on increasing the knowledge and skills of students in STEM and about STEM careers, particularly in science.