The ITEST Learning Resource Center at EDC hosted a convening designed to develop a theoretical framework to guide future research on youth motivation in STEM with a particular emphasis on populations most underrepresented in STEM. Two guiding questions were be the focus of the event: What is currently known about motivation in STEM for underrepresented youth? What can be done to cultivate new research around STEM motivation for underrepresented youth?

By employing a design challenge to program an underwater vehicle to perform tasks, this project seeks to teach students about information technology, science and problem solving. Students and teachers involved in the project have face-to-face interaction with Stevens' women and underrepresented minority faculty, researchers and undergraduate students who help them design and test underwater robotic vehicles. Teachers, guidance counselors, and parents are provided with information about career options in information technology.

This comprehensive ITEST project will provide sixty middle and high school teachers with an introduction to Geographic Information System (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) technologies. The project, which brings together a leadership team of educators, science researchers and experts in resource management, is based at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Appalachian Laboratory, a research facility that studies stream and forest ecosystems.

The Pulsar Search Collaboratory project (PSC) will engage 60 West Virginia teachers and 600 students in world class research in radio astronomy through the analysis of data collected using the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT).

TechBoston and Northeastern University are working collaboratively in this comprehensive project to integrate an innovative robotics curriculum into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses in the Boston Public Schools and in other racially diverse and economically disadvantaged Massachusetts school districts.

This Strategies project seeks to provide year round programming following an intensive summer camp for teachers and students from middle schools in a rural area. It proposes to build on the Games that Teach research at MIT, and the games research of the Digital Collaboratory at UT-Austin, to give teachers the skills they need to design educational game components in team situations with students. The approach is to use 3-D visualizations, physics engines and other gaming strategies to relate abstract math and science concepts to real world phenomenon.

This research project would investigate the determinants and consequences of student enrollment in a new Florida program of high school "career academies" intended to integrate rigorous academic curriculum with industry-driven careers. The researchers have created some specific hypotheses about curriculum and school organization and their relationship to choosing STEM careers that can be tested with the study they have designed.

The Conference on Cyberlearning Tools for STEM (CyTSE) brings together scientists, cyberlearning developers, educational researchers, STEM educators (formal and informal), curriculum developers and other stakeholders that contribute to the agenda on K-12 STEM cyberlearning and workforce preparation. Collaborators include Northwestern University, University of Colorado at Boulder, and the WGBH Educational Foundation. This informative meeting will be held as a NSTA pre-conference workshop.

CREST networked 17 island and coastal schools throughout Maine into a learning community focusing on finding ways that students can use technology to find solutions to community questions. CREST directly impacts 55 students and 44 teachers, and indirectly impacts 1,700 additional students. CREST focuses on delivering database development, GIS mapping, web design and ethnographic research skills to students and teachers in Maine's most remote locations.

Fostering Interest in Information Technology or FI3T is designed to engage underrepresented high school students in a Community of Designers by creating project-based design teams. The project is supported by the University of Michigan-Dearborn College of Engineering and Computer Science, the College of Arts and Sciences and Letters, and the School of Education.