The National Center for Education Statistics reports that 52% of students in US K-12 public schools were eligible for free and reduced lunch during 2013-2014, up from 38 percent in 2000-2001. Research is needed to better understand how to create engaging and effective informal learning environments for this changing youth demographic. For instance, what are their interests? How can they be provided with experiences commensurate with peers who have greater opportunities? What are the aspirations of young people in middle-school who will be tomorrow’s leaders? To answer these questions, we

Informal learning programs provide youth with additional opportunities to engage in STEM. Here, we report on an informal engineering program for low-income youth. We describe how a curriculum was modified to reflect the instructional shifts outlined in the Framework for K-12 Science Education and how these changes enhanced youth interests and engagement in engineering practices.

This 3-year ITEST project focuses on integrating engineering design concepts and practices in the middle school physical sciences curriculum. The goal is to increase students’ interest in STEM and expand their access to opportunities to experience integrated STEM activities. Our work focused on middle school students as research shows that interest in STEM decreases through middle school. The planned intervention is based on existing theory and research on motivation, as well as the emerging body of literature on integrated STEM instruction. Research shows that relevance is essential to

In order to affect career decisions, it is important to reach youth at early ages. While some have focused on using mentors in order to successfully teach mentees, few have focused on the benefits to the mentors themselves. To our knowledge, no other research has been conducted on the effect that serving as a near-peer mentor has on increasing the mentors' interest, self-efficacy, value-beliefs, and skills in computer science. Our paid mentorships provided youth two weeks of participation in computer science camps using App Inventor. The mentors in our pilot study increased self-efficacy and

Parental support is a predictor of children's career interest and aspirations. However, mother and father support affects youth career choices differently. To understand how perceived mothers' and fathers' support affect career interest in computer science (CS), we developed two path models using both mother and father support gains to predict youths' interest in CS. We hypothesized that perceived father's and mother's support would relate to youths' interest in CS via youths' perception of CS utility value as a mediator. We found that both mother and father support leads to interest in CS

The paper provides details of a teacher professional development workshop on an authentic learning environment incorporating lessons based on hands-on activities on a flight simulator. The workshop design was based on best practices for teacher Professional Development (PD). The attitudes of teachers towards the use of technology were measured during the PD and are shared in this paper. Subsequently, a summer camp using the same learning environment was conducted for middle school students to learn selected math and science concepts. The results of the impact on the student participants of the

The NGSS are national standards developed by educators, teachers, and scientists across the nation to address and enhance STEM education. NGSS highlights the importance of including science and engineering practices in K-12 classrooms. However, teacher certification and professional development (PD) programs require significant support to facilitate integration of engineering and technology in K-12 schools. Many teachers report having low self-efficacy in their ability to teach science, which in turn affects students’ science learning. The development of self-efficacy relies on four key

Prior to the 2012 London Olympics, city planners added extensive wildflower meadows and something interesting happened: The number of pollinating insects and other local species (e.g., the biodiversity of the area) increased dramatically (Conniff, 2014). In response to statistics indicating that the portion of our planet characterized as urban is on track to triple from 2000-2030, scientists and community members in the United Kingdom and some American cities are taking action to study (e.g., Lerman, Nislow, Nowak, DeStefano, Kind, Jones-Farrand, 2014) and introduce often simple strategies for

There is a growing concern in the US about the lack of student interest and aptitude in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines. Research indicates that engineering and technology integration in K-12 improve students’ content understanding and skill development, understanding of interactions among the STEM disciplines, and interest in STEM careers. Many in-service STEM teachers have limited experience and/or educational background in engineering and technology. These teachers have limited confidence to incorporate engineering and technology in their classroom. At a

There is growing concern in the United States about the lack of interest and aptitude in science, math and, in particular, technology and engineering disciplines. Certainly one reason for this could be the lack of true engineering experiences available to students when they are in junior high and high school. This is in part due to the fact that while most teachers are well versed in math and science through their formal education, very few have experience and/or educational backgrounds in engineering and technology. To promote STEM careers, a partnership among university engineering faculty