This project will develop a suite of digital tools designed to support positive messaging around skill-based education and careers and to improve mentors' communication with middle school-aged youth mentees. Maintaining U.S. economic advantage requires attracting talent to high-growth, high-demand skill-based, STEM-related careers that are traditionally attained through Career and Technical Education (CTE). Replacing old negative perceptions with new, more accurate messages about CTE and then reaching youth with these messages before high school is essential. Career-focused mentoring is a vehicle for delivering these messages and supporting youth exploration of CTE as a possible path for their own lives.

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by

Acquainting Metro Atlanta Youth with STEM (AMAYS) was an NSF, ITEST Strategies project housed at Georgia State University that included the creation, implementation, and evaluation of a unique, technology-rich, informal learning environment for middle school youth. AMAYS participants were largely

This project includes an after-school program that will engage urban Latino middle school and high school students in activities aimed at developing computational competencies and promoting interests in pursuing computer science related studies and careers. The project will also engage pre-service

Educational Pathways Into College and Career is a multi-faceted summer program designed to equip students from low-performing schools, low-income families and ethnic/racial groups underrepresented in STEM fields with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to succeed in STEM majors and pursue STEM-related careers.

STEM Career Clubs builds on a successful and research-based Strategic Teaming Model to increase the likelihood that participating students will pursue STEM majors and careers.

This project innovatively aims to motivate early teens to pursue careers in engineering and computer science through an afterschool program. This program combines these subjects with business entrepreneurship by engaging students in designing computer science and engineering products.

Project ReCharge will engage middle school and high school students as energy detectives in their schools. Using tablet computers to collect data on school energy use, students will learn to track electrical loads in their buildings.

Research studies, commissioned reports, and national and international tests of educational progress in STEM fields show that a large gap exists, in interest and achievement, between underrepresented students and their counterparts.

This ITEST Strategies project will create a partnership of the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML), the Tri-City Technology Education Collaborative Inc. (TRITEC), and the urban school districts of Medford and Everett, MA to bring project-based, socially-relevant computing experiences to district middle school students.