Emerging Tech (Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, and Blockchain)

IntegrateAI: Integrating AI Learning into Middle School Science through Natural Language Processing

Bronwyn Taggart — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 21:14:15 +0000

IntegrateAI: Integrating AI Learning into Middle School Science through Natural Language Processing

Bronwyn Taggart Mon, 04/29/2024 - 17:14

IntegrateAI: Integrating AI Learning into Middle School Science through Natural Language Processing

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

Natural language data is everywhere: news articles, social media posts, YouTube transcripts, TikTok comments, and more. Large amounts of this data are related to scientific phenomena such as weather, health and diseases, engineering, and conservation. Our project leverages the power of artificial intelligence to process huge amounts of data in fractions of a second. This powerful field of artificial intelligence is called Natural Language Processing (NLP), and our project is applying it to middle-school science teaching

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

The Integrate AI Project is a partnership among the University of Florida, North Carolina State University, and Indiana University, carrying out a participatory co-design effort with teachers to develop an NLP+Science curriculum for middle-school students. This curriculum will increase students’ knowledge and interest in STEM and ICT careers.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

The research team will provide potentially transformative experiences to 12 teachers and over 1,000 students, leveraging existing partnerships within a multi-district, two-state effort in Florida and Indiana in diverse schools with approximately 50% African-American students and the majority of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

Discipline(s)

Environmental sciences

Emerging Tech (Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, and Blockchain)

Target Gradespan(s)

Middle school (6-8)

Target Participant(s)

Youth / students

Educators

Project Setting(s)

Formal Education

Category

Developing and Testing Innovations (DTI)

Project DIALOGS: Fostering STEM Career Identity and Computer Science Learning through Youth-Led Conversational App Development Experiences

Bronwyn Taggart — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 21:00:31 +0000

Project DIALOGS: Fostering STEM Career Identity and Computer Science Learning through Youth-Led Conversational App Development Experiences

Bronwyn Taggart Mon, 04/29/2024 - 17:00

Project DIALOGS: Fostering STEM Career Identity and Computer Science Learning through Youth-Led Conversational App Development Experiences

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

Through an inquiry process centered on developing conversational AI—spoken technologies that engage users in conversation—middle-school students investigated and created innovative computational applications. Young learners designed and implemented of a variety of personally relevant projects, including speech assistants, question-answering systems, and games. These projects can offer meaningful engagement that has the potential to transform the way middle-school students view computing and AI careers.

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

Researchers in computer science and educational technology from the University of Florida tested the hypothesis that students will display a significantly increased sense of identity and interest formation toward STEM careers following the 2-week summer development experience. The research team analyzed patterns of collaboration and participation to explain how the learning experience supports these outcomes.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

This project engaged 210 historically marginalized middle-school students in Alachua County, Florida, in a summer program that taught them computer science and AI concepts. As it moves into its final year, the project will reach diverse middle school classes within urban and suburban schools in Alachua County, Florida.

Discipline(s)

Emerging Tech (Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, and Blockchain)

Target Gradespan(s)

Middle school (6-8)

Target Participant(s)

Black/African American participants

Project Setting(s)

Formal Education

Informal Education

Category

Developing and Testing Innovations (DTI)

Smart Motors - a low-cost platform for introducing supervised machine learning to children

Jennifer Cross — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 22:23:38 +0000

Smart Motors - a low-cost platform for introducing supervised machine learning to children

Jennifer Cross Thu, 04/25/2024 - 18:23

Smart Motors - a low-cost platform for introducing supervised machine learning to children

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching: Our project uses the newly developed Smart Motor hardware to introduce students to supervised machine learning concepts. These tools enhance literacy-integrated engineering design activities, where characters from grade-appropriate books are the clients. Simultaneously, students practice math skills such as collecting data and interpreting graphs.

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation: Our pilot program was co-designed with educators from schools and outreach organizations in the North St. Louis community. Simultaneously, our team’s AI experts are identifying skills and knowledge that will be crucial to the future of work in that field.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

Strategies for Equity in STEM Education: Our project is co-designing our program with outreach partners and educators in North St. Louis to develop and pilot activities that are meaningful and engaging to the Black and African American students in those communities.

Discipline(s)

Engineering

Emerging Tech (Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, and Blockchain)

Interdisciplinary

Target Gradespan(s)

Elementary school (K-5)

Target Participant(s)

Youth / students

Black/African American participants

Students eligible for free lunch or reduced-price lunch

Project Setting(s)

Formal Education

Informal Education

Category

Exploratory

Connecting Traditional Knowledge and Emerging STEM Through Smart AgTech

Dylan Bulseco — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 18:28:27 +0000

Connecting Traditional Knowledge and Emerging STEM Through Smart AgTech

Dylan Bulseco Thu, 04/25/2024 - 14:28

Connecting Traditional Knowledge and Emerging STEM Through Smart AgTech

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

We will use integrated STEM to bring innovative technologies into the classroom. Integrated STEM require that the curriculum find ways to embed all STEM disciplines. We will develop an AgTech curriculum that uses smart farm approaches, combined with problem-based learning that will allow students some independence and creative input within the constraints of the curriculum. The Jukebox is a closed smart farm with environmental control systems and sensor technologies for data acquisition and processing.

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

The curriculum will immerse students in the growth of a historically important crop in Hawaii, limu, while preparing them for a career in AgTech. The approach we will take follows the paradigm of: Observe, Interpret, Decide and Act, connecting traditional knowledge with modern AgTech practices. Students will work with community mentors to learn both modern AgTech practices (Oceanic Institute, Windward Community College) as well as traditional Hawaiian aquaculture approaches (Waikalua Loko Iʻa Fishpond).

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

This project will be launched in the Castle-Kahuku district on Oahu, Hawaii, where 43% of the student population is Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and 44% of the students are considered economically disadvantaged. The curriculum will focus on connecting STEM and AgTech with traditional Hawaiian practices, connecting these students with community members that may serve as mentors and future employers. Students will learn valuable STEM concepts while learning meaningful skills that contribute to food security.

Discipline(s)

Chemistry

Data Science

Emerging Tech (Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, and Blockchain)

Target Gradespan(s)

High school (9-12)

Target Participant(s)

Youth / students

Educators

Project Setting(s)

Formal Education

Category

Developing and Testing Innovations (DTI)

Foster AI Learning for Smart Manufacturing

Jia Liu — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 19:43:21 +0000

Foster AI Learning for Smart Manufacturing

Jia Liu Wed, 04/24/2024 - 15:43

Foster AI Learning for Smart Manufacturing

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

We will put the “Five Big Ideas in AI”, including perception, representation and reasoning, learning, natural interaction, and societal impact, into smart manufacturing and identify age-appropriate AI knowledge for high-school students. The AI learning modules include (1) perceiving the temperature and vibration, (2) representing operations with sensor data, (3) learning data patterns for different operations, (4) communicating operations with natural language, and (5) showing AI impacts on operations.

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

The recently emerging AI has prompted various industries to reimagine their work activities and reevaluate their requirements for the future workforce. Focused on underserved high schools and underrepresented students, this career-driven AI educational program will improve broader interest from diverse students in smart manufacturing and prepares underserved students to high-quality, higher-paying jobs in manufacturing, addressing the knowledge gaps and workforce shortage for smart manufacturing in the U.S.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

This AI in smart manufacturing education program will employ project-based learning to stimulate broader career interest among a diverse range of students. Fifty rising high-school students from underserved school districts across the Black Belt region and rural low-income areas of Alabama will be recruited to participate in a one-week summer camp. Ten high-school teachers will be recruited to receive a three-day intensive professional training to continue the AI educational intervention at their respective schools.

Discipline(s)

Engineering

Emerging Tech (Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, and Blockchain)

Target Gradespan(s)

High school (9-12)

Target Participant(s)

Youth / students

Educators

Girls (or women)

American Indian/Alaska Native participants

Black/African American participants

Hispanic/Latino participants

Project Setting(s)

Formal Education

Category

Exploratory

RAPID

Research Study

SRMPmachine: Preparing High School Students for Careers in Machine Learning through Mentored Scientific Research

Mark Weckel — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 18:58:10 +0000

SRMPmachine: Preparing High School Students for Careers in Machine Learning through Mentored Scientific Research

Mark Weckel Wed, 04/24/2024 - 14:58

SRMPmachine: Preparing High School Students for Careers in Machine Learning through Mentored Scientific Research

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

During the Summer Institute, students conduct several mini scientific investigations while navigating the ML pipeline. Through plugged and unplugged techniques, students use four different ML methods: linear regression, principal component analysis, decision trees, and artificial neural networks. The culminating project involves using “Wallace,” a code-light professional platform used by biodiversity scientists, to run ML models to predict species distribution using locality data and climate variables.

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

SRMP is a STEM workforce development program that provides mentored-research experiences and scaffolded supports. SRMPmachine was co-developed by scientists, STEM educators, MIT AI experts, and SRMP alumni. Our alumni, all emerging computer science and IT professionals in academia and industry, were critical to the development of SRMPmachine. These young professionals captured both the spirit of what students need in their informal education experience and the skill sets that have propelled them in their early careers

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

AI requires broad participation to fulfill its potential and minimize the risk of harm, which means creating learning spaces that support a diversity of learners as valued members of the AI community. We employed the YESTEM Core Equitable Practices (CEP) of “Authority Sharing” & “Shifting Narratives” to guide the development of the Summer Institute. These CEPs position educators and youth as "co-learners, co-disruptors, and co-creators of a more just world" within and through STEM (Greenberg & Calabrese Barton, 2021; YE

Discipline(s)

Data Science

Emerging Tech (Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, and Blockchain)

Interdisciplinary

Life sciences

Physics and astronomy

Target Gradespan(s)

High school (9-12)

Target Participant(s)

Youth / students

Project Setting(s)

Informal Education

Category

Developing and Testing Innovations (DTI)

Integrating language-based AI across the curriculum to create diverse pathways to AI-rich careers

Rebecca Ellis — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 18:47:23 +0000

Integrating language-based AI across the curriculum to create diverse pathways to AI-rich careers

Rebecca Ellis Wed, 04/24/2024 - 14:47

Integrating language-based AI across the curriculum to create diverse pathways to AI-rich careers

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

The project is refining the StoryQ app and developing a Markov Chain model app to help students visualize text classification and text generation AI models. The use of these models is integrated into secondary disciplinary courses for maximum access and relatability.

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

By leveraging the intrinsic connections between AI and disciplines already taught in schools, the project envisions a series of learning opportunities, presenting discipline-specific scenarios for students to dive deep into aspects of AI and to develop awareness and interest in various AI applications and careers.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

This project will create an effective, scalable, and sustainable exemplary program for high school students, especially those underrepresented and underserved in the field of AI, to develop foundational knowledge of AI and interest in AI-rich careers.

Discipline(s)

Computer and informational technology science

Data Science

Emerging Tech (Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, and Blockchain)

Interdisciplinary

Mathematical sciences

Other

Target Gradespan(s)

High school (9-12)

Target Participant(s)

Youth / students

Educators

Black/African American participants

Hispanic/Latino participants

Students eligible for free lunch or reduced-price lunch

Project Setting(s)

Formal Education

Category

Developing and Testing Innovations (DTI)

SRMPmachine: Preparing High School Students for Careers in Machine Learning through Mentored Scientific Research

Mark Weckel — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 18:40:53 +0000

SRMPmachine: Preparing High School Students for Careers in Machine Learning through Mentored Scientific Research

Mark Weckel Wed, 04/24/2024 - 14:40

SRMPmachine: Preparing High School Students for Careers in Machine Learning through Mentored Scientific Research

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

Discipline(s)

Data Science

Emerging Tech (Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, and Blockchain)

Interdisciplinary

Life sciences

Physics and astronomy

Target Gradespan(s)

High school (9-12)

Target Participant(s)

Youth / students

Project Setting(s)

Informal Education

Category

Developing and Testing Innovations (DTI)

Integrating AI Technical Learning with Ethics in an Online Collaborative Learning Environment

Eric Greenwald — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 17:19:24 +0000

Integrating AI Technical Learning with Ethics in an Online Collaborative Learning Environment

Eric Greenwald Wed, 04/24/2024 - 13:19

Integrating AI Technical Learning with Ethics in an Online Collaborative Learning Environment

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

This project will advance knowledge toward building a more inclusive approach to integrating ethical principles within technical training. This will increase the likelihood that the future workforce will be attentive to ethical concerns and better reflect the views and backgrounds of the populations that the technology is supposed to serve. Through the intentional design for productive online collaboration, the project will contribute to improved learning outcomes in online spaces.

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

Through its implementation, the project will address three important national needs: (1) increasing and expanding AI workforce capacity; (2) attending to the social and ethical concerns associated with AI; and (3) broadening participation in AI understanding to bring a greater diversity of lived experiences to the AI workforce and greater STEM field.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

The project is engaging a youth advisory board and drawing on principles from Culturally Responsive Computing (Scott, Sheridan, and Clark, 2015) to ensure that learning activities are grounded in real-world contexts that are relevant to high school aged-youth and enables them to draw on their own personal and cultural knowledge.

Discipline(s)

Emerging Tech (Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, and Blockchain)

Target Gradespan(s)

High school (9-12)

Target Participant(s)

Youth / students

Project Setting(s)

Informal Education

Category

Developing and Testing Innovations (DTI)

Robotic Enhanced Restorative Justice Gardening

Mike Barnett — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 10:37:13 +0000

Robotic Enhanced Restorative Justice Gardening

Mike Barnett Wed, 04/24/2024 - 06:37

Robotic Enhanced Restorative Justice Gardening

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

In partnership with the company Farmbot we are utilizing an AI enhanced, modularized gardening robot, the farm.bot. The farm.bot is an open sourced, computer numerical control (CNC), automated farming robot that has an easy-to-program API interface that allows the programming of the camera to engage the machine in automatic weeding, watering, and monitoring environmental conditions such as soil moisture, air temperature, and relative humidity.

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

We draw upon Boston College’s Tools for Tomorrow curriculum which fosters career- and self-exploration, including identifying goals, resources, and barriers to careers and fostering flexibility to navigate barriers and adapt to change as needed in a rapidly changing work context. Youth examine how STEM skills are central in the attainment of rewarding and meaningful potential STEM and non-STEM careers, as well as in meeting the goals of helping their communities

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

Drawing upon an emancipatory community design and research approach, our work involves youth in participatory action research in which young people use research methods to make sense of and address social problems of community food insecurity by building and programming restorative gardens in their local communities. The restorative gardens offer multiple entry points and pathways for motivating and engaging youth who have different interests and are from different backgrounds and experiences in STEM.

Discipline(s)

Emerging Tech (Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, and Blockchain)

Interdisciplinary

Target Gradespan(s)

High school (9-12)

Target Participant(s)

Youth / students

Project Setting(s)

Informal Education

Category

Developing and Testing Innovations (DTI)

Emerging Tech (Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, and Blockchain)

IntegrateAI: Integrating AI Learning into Middle School Science through Natural Language Processing

IntegrateAI: Integrating AI Learning into Middle School Science through Natural Language Processing

IntegrateAI: Integrating AI Learning into Middle School Science through Natural Language Processing

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

Integrating AI Learning into Middle School Science through Natural Language Processing

Project DIALOGS: Fostering STEM Career Identity and Computer Science Learning through Youth-Led Conversational App Development Experiences

Project DIALOGS: Fostering STEM Career Identity and Computer Science Learning through Youth-Led Conversational App Development Experiences

Project DIALOGS: Fostering STEM Career Identity and Computer Science Learning through Youth-Led Conversational App Development Experiences

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

Fostering Computer Science and AI Learning through Youth-Led Conversational App Development Experiences

Smart Motors - a low-cost platform for introducing supervised machine learning to children

Smart Motors - a low-cost platform for introducing supervised machine learning to children

Smart Motors - a low-cost platform for introducing supervised machine learning to children

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

Integrating Artificial Intelligence with Smart Engineering and English Language Arts in Upper Elementary Education

Connecting Traditional Knowledge and Emerging STEM Through Smart AgTech

Connecting Traditional Knowledge and Emerging STEM Through Smart AgTech

Connecting Traditional Knowledge and Emerging STEM Through Smart AgTech

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

Connecting Indigenous Culture and Integrated STEM in Hawaii Through Smart AgTech

Foster AI Learning for Smart Manufacturing

Foster AI Learning for Smart Manufacturing

Foster AI Learning for Smart Manufacturing

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

A Career-Driven AI Educational Program in Smart Manufacturing for Underserved High-school Students in the Alabama Black Belt Region

SRMPmachine: Preparing High School Students for Careers in Machine Learning through Mentored Scientific Research

SRMPmachine: Preparing High School Students for Careers in Machine Learning through Mentored Scientific Research

SRMPmachine: Preparing High School Students for Careers in Machine Learning through Mentored Scientific Research

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

Preparing High School Students for Careers in Machine Learning through Mentored Scientific Research

Integrating language-based AI across the curriculum to create diverse pathways to AI-rich careers

Integrating language-based AI across the curriculum to create diverse pathways to AI-rich careers

Integrating language-based AI across the curriculum to create diverse pathways to AI-rich careers

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

Integrating Language-Based AI Across the High School Curriculum to Create Diverse Pathways to AI-Rich Careers

SRMPmachine: Preparing High School Students for Careers in Machine Learning through Mentored Scientific Research

SRMPmachine: Preparing High School Students for Careers in Machine Learning through Mentored Scientific Research

SRMPmachine: Preparing High School Students for Careers in Machine Learning through Mentored Scientific Research

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

Preparing High School Students for Careers in Machine Learning through Mentored Scientific Research

Integrating AI Technical Learning with Ethics in an Online Collaborative Learning Environment

Integrating AI Technical Learning with Ethics in an Online Collaborative Learning Environment

Integrating AI Technical Learning with Ethics in an Online Collaborative Learning Environment

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

AI for the Workforce of Tomorrow: Attending to Ethics and Collaboration in Learning Artificial Intelligence for High School Aged Youth

Robotic Enhanced Restorative Justice Gardening

Robotic Enhanced Restorative Justice Gardening

Robotic Enhanced Restorative Justice Gardening

Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching

Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.

Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education

Empowering Youth in STEM and Technological Careers through AI-Enhanced Sustainable and Community-Focused Urban Gardening