ITEST Projects

Incorporating urgent issues of social and environmental justice into environmental science teaching can harness youth’s real-world interests and improve their engagement, learning, sense of belonging, and career interests. This may be especially true for students who are directly experiencing the

This project responds to the persistent patterns of underrepresentation of women, African American and Latinx people in engineering. Many youth continue to have a limited, and at times inaccurate, understanding of what engineering is and what engineers do. Often, these limited perceptions of

Computing skills are essential for 21st-century workforce development, and artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly at the center of computationally rich careers. To remain at the forefront of global technology, the US needs a diverse workforce prepared with these skills. There is a tremendous

This project will focus on research and development for a new professional development model to support teachers in engaging middle school and high school students in independent data analysis research projects, using local ecological data. While there has been a tremendous explosion of publicly

Communities of color across the nation face increasing challenges with affordable access to safe drinking water. Using data science to explore why, where and how this is happening, and what is being done about it, provides a powerful vehicle for the engagement of students in science, technology

The underrepresentation of Native Americans in STEM and computing deprives the nation of its potential for innovation and transformative solutions that can arise from a diverse STEM workforce. Studying the educational differences between Native American and non-Native American learners will increase

The main goal of this collaborative project is to create and evaluate a universally accessible data science infrastructure for high-school-aged learners, with a focus on students with disabilities. Data science is critical in the development of industry-relevant computational thinking skills

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is quickly becoming ubiquitous in STEM and across industries, and the education field is grappling with how best to teach AI concepts to K12 audiences. Simultaneously, the AI professional community suffers from a lack of diversity that excludes women and people of color

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies begin to reshape modern society, educating younger students about AI has become a national priority for both the United States and its competitors. In these early days of K-12 AI education, little is known about how diverse student populations relate to

The development of spatial orientation (SO) skills – the ability to identify the position of objects in space – is a strong predictor of math skills and later school success and academic achievement. However, even with the increasing evidence in the importance of SO skills for children, they are