This project addresses access to STEM educational experiences for rural students. Students from rural areas and small towns make up about 30% of the U.S. secondary school population but often lack inspirational STEM educational opportunities and experiences. This makes them less likely to pursue
The STEM CareerBuilder research and development (R&D) project aims to (1) explore what strategic government-university-industry partnerships and (2) study how technology-enriched interventions can encourage and support high school students with their pursuit of STEM education and careers. Multi-tier interventions with age-appropriate, interdisciplinary content, real-word context, and co-educational curricula include: Computer Forensics Summer Academy, mentoring, job shadowing, internships, research fellowships, and professional development. Activities Crime Scene Investigation Fingerprint
"Stories of Algebra" is a series or activities in the ASSISTments platform where students pose, solve, and share algebra problems related to their interests. Stories of Algebra created an experience where students receive activities personalized to their career interests (e.g., healthcare, IT), and/or personalized to their everyday interests (e.g., sports, video games). They have created these activities to a wide variety of types of mathematical functions - including linear, exponential, logarithmic, and power - and have targeted their activities to algebraic courses from 8th grade math, to
Your mental map is a representation of your own personal geography that you carry around with you and draw on as you make everyday decisions about where to go and how to get there. Everyone’s mental map is different. Mental maps reflect the spatial information we use in our daily lives, like where we know and where we don’t know, and they are influenced by things like personal experiences, transportation, safety, and accessibility. Maps are models of the world around us. Creating a map requires selecting what information is important, filtering out what is not important, and simplifying how
A Community-Connected Elementary Geotechnical Engineering Unit In the “Make Way for Trains” unit (MWT), students explore key concepts of geotechnical engineering in the context of a train track expansion for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA): as railway corridors are widened, the sloping earth material surrounding the tracks must simultaneously support existing structures and not fall onto the tracks. Developed specifically for the Boston, Massachusetts, context, the unit begins with a look at how MBTA workers employ science and engineering for the geotechnical support for
Artifacts in space Essential Question: How can I increase students’ knowledge about astronauts of color and expose them to careers in aerospace and engineering? Learning Objective: Students will be able to develop listening, reading, and comprehension skills by hearing and reading stories about contemporary astronauts and make a model of a space shuttle. Lesson 1: Astronauts of Color and the Space Shuttle Lesson 2: Culturally Relevant Artifacts for Space Launch Lesson 3: Mission Mars
Protect Belle Isle from Invasive Species! Invaders are taking over Belle Isle! We need your help to protect the island from invasive species. In this game learn what you can do to prevent the spread of nature’s enemies. The fate of Belle Isle is up to you! Chutes and Ladders Board Character Cards Instructions
The Computational Thinkers With the permission of Computing at School’s Barefoot initiative (https://barefootcas.org.uk/), we have adopted both the concepts implicated in computational thinking and the approaches most likely to be adopted fruitfully by an individual who is engaged in computational thinking. Computational Thinking (CT) Concepts While adopting the Computing at School’s Barefoot initiative’s concepts and approaches, we have opted to use a different set of icons to associate with each. For each element of the curricular activity system, we designate which of the processes we
What is a unit fraction? Why is one-half of one-fourth of one whole the same value as one-eighth of the whole? Why can three-fourths of one whole also be expressed as one-fourth of three wholes? These are questions that fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students, including students with learning disabilities and math difficulties, encounter and wonder about. Through our design, development, and testing of a game based curriculum called Dream2B, we hope to support students to develop a deep understanding of fractions. Our curriculum addresses six big ideas that extend across third through sixth