This "scale-up" project uses engineering as well as science to bring engineering experiences to underrepresented communities. The investigators will build under water robots, create social networks, and produce a webcast. This project is based on evidence gained from a previous ITEST Strategies grant (ESI-0624709) that showed that an underwater robotics curriculum can increase student learning of science and engineering concepts, their practice of 21st century skills such as problem-solving and collaboration, their enjoyment of science, and their engineering career interest.

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.

This Rutgers University project, Conducting Authentic Molecular Biology and Genomics Research (MBGR) in High Schools, is a three-year strategies-based ITEST project that provides avenues for science teachers and their students to become part of, and contribute to, authentic research in biotechnology, molecular biology, and bioinformatics. Teachers and students will use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to analyze their experimental findings and publish their results in databases used by scientists throughout the world.

This project combines efforts of the EDUCATION CONNECTION Center for 21st Century Skills with the Education Development Center (its research partner), and K-12 school districts to develop, implement, study, and evaluate an innovative STEM career academy model. A consortium of state colleges and universities (as well as other entities) helps to fully integrate cyberlearning and content courses in STEM with digital arts and media.

This project introduces 4th and 5th grade students and teachers to engineering design and associated mathematics by developing and implementing a new, scalable, personal fabrication laboratory, the Classroom FabLab, and supporting curriculum. The University of Virginia and the University of North Texas are providing preparation in personal fabrication to pre-service teachers in their methods courses. The pre-service teachers are doing their student teaching under master teachers trained by the project in ten classrooms in Virginia and five in Texas.

The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research is collaborating with the GLOBE program, the University of Colorado, New York University, the Texas Regional Collaboratives and several other partners to design, implement, and evaluate an Earth System Science learning experience for teachers and students.

This project will utilize computer graphics, game development and mutual mentoring as elements in an innovative Computer Science curriculum for two cohorts of underrepresented high school students. The design, development and implementation of this curriculum will be conducted through a partnership of California State Sacramento (the Department of Computer Science and the College of Education), Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement (MESA) and local K-12 schools.

The New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) is working with faculty, students and staff in four high-minority urban school districts in New Jersey to integrate robotics programming, engineering design and information technology into existing curricula for grades 7-12. The goal of the project is to enlarge the number of students from underrepresented groups who are interested in pursuing IT and STEM careers by engaging secondary students in ten robotics activities that involve computer programming to solve grade-appropriate biomedical engineering problems.

The Paleo Exploration Project has provided training in paleontology and geospatial analysis to 52 K-12 math, science, and technology teachers and over 80 middle school students from rural eastern Montana, an area that includes five of the state’s seven Indian reservations. Through a series of two-day weekend workshops, participating teachers learned about Montana's geologic history and fossil record, and were trained in the use sophisticated geospatial technologies to plan and conduct field-based geological investigations.

The goal of this three-year, comprehensive ITEST project is to prepare diverse middle- and high-school students for careers in information technologies (IT) by engaging them in designing inquiry-based science activities that use computational models and real-time data acquisition and analysis. The project provides 126 hours of lab-based, credit-bearing activities for 90 teachers and support for classroom implementation. Participants meet for two weeks in the summer of 2007, twice face-to-face plus online during the academic year, and again the following summer for one week.