Wisdom Tools (WT), in partnership with the Indiana STEM Resource Network (I-STEM), will design, develop, and test ICT-SPACE (ICT-STEM Professions And Careers Exploration), a game-based career exploration environment for 7th and 8th grade students. The primary deliverable for this ITEST Strategies project is a suite of six online mini-games that will allow students to "try on" five ICT-STEM professions, and then work collaboratively to solve a capstone challenge mission requiring skills from each profession.

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.

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 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.

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 ITEST strategies project titled Classroom Student Investigations, uses the popularity of the Crime Scene Investigation television show, involving forensic science investigation, as a metaphor to train teachers in forensic science topics and use that training in their science classrooms to stimulate and encourage middle and upper school students in science topics generally. The project is expected to lead to increased student interest in STEM topics using students interest in the culturally popular portrayal of forensic science to convey many basic STEM principles.

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.