The Connected Spaces (C/S) (DRL #2048852) project is researching and developing a technological toolkit and design framework to connect youth makers with peers, mentors, and technical assistance. Makers tinker, design, create, and invent, often working with peers in makerspaces equipped with traditional materials and tools as well as with 3-D printers, electronics, computer design and other technologies. The project is designed to connect prospective and geographically distributed middle and high school makers who are underrepresented in STEM with peers, mentors, and technical assistance.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic provides a starting point for empowering young people to understand uses of data science through epidemiology. Through this program, 650 plus underserved youth nationwide have engaged in a 20-hour out-of-school multimedia "Data Detectives Clubs" centered on a project-developed adventure novel, The Case of the COVID Crisis, which is integrated with data activities, modeling, animations, and career exploration.

This project provides opportunities for high school teachers to learn how to integrate QIS into their STEM classrooms. Educators attend professional development and then teach what they have learned to students at STEM camps. The learn and practice approach will hopefully allow teachers to be more confident when implementing lessons in their classrooms. 

CELI uses a networked improvement community (NIC) approach to school-wide transformation, teacher, agency, and minoritized students’ climate science and belonging in two low-income public schools (a middle school and a high school) receiving all of the District’s new-immigrant students in Hayward, CA.

SRMPmachine innovates within the well-established Science Research Mentoring Program (SRMP) by creating opportunities for high school interns to apply machine learning (ML) to scientific problems in the natural sciences. We are measuring students knowledge and skill gains, and shifts in attitudes towards AI and career awareness.

The goal of Project-Co-STEM is to develop a model for professional development and classroom implementation support that increases STEM learning opportunities for middle school youth from the rural communities and tribal nations of Northern Arizona.

The STEM Career Exploration Lab (CEL) program is conducting across the United States a series of summer camps for high school students with Blindness / Visual Impairment (B/VI) to stimulate their interest in STEM fields and STEM careers. We use astronomy and assistive technologies, including 3D printing and 3D printed tactile models, to bolster students' STEM skills.

An overview of our project in which we are working with with leaders of local communities comprised largely of former refugees to promote STEM aspirations among youth, grades 7-12.