STEM Tales: Investigating the effect of media read-alouds on young children's STEM and literacy learning and interest in STEM careers

2022 - 2024

Exciting young children's interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an essential way to attract more students to STEM course work and STEM careers. This project will use a variety of tools to engage four- to eight-year-old children and their families. First, the project will create a five-episode STEM media series for the Public Broadcasting System. The series will include diverse STEM professionals, including astronauts and engineers, reading STEM picture books from space, Earth, and sea.

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Project BUILD (Building Using an Interactive Learning Design)

2017 - 2021
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This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by bringing together youth (grades 2-5), their families, librarians, and professional engineers in an informal environment centered on engaging youth with age-appropriate, technology-rich STEM learning experiences fundamental to the engineering design process.

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Fostering Equitable Science through Parental Involvement and Technology

2017 - 2022

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by examining the relationship between science learning and STEM career interest outcomes for students, and racial minority and immigrant parental involvement via a technology-enhanced social learning environment (SLE).

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Expanding Geospatial Technology Career Development for High School Students Through Teacher Professional Development

2015 - 2020
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The Power of Data (POD) project is designed to increase secondary student awareness of and interest in careers that use geospatial technology (GST) and data; increase their knowledge of educational pathways to enter these careers; and develop their 21st century workforce skills. Building on successful implementation in Arizona, the 4-year project will be carried out on a larger scale. The project will use a train-the-trainer approach involving some 30 teacher educators, 90 teachers and 27,000 students.

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LinCT: Linking Educators, Youth, and Learners in Computational Thinking

2015 - 2019

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by producing empirical findings and/or research tools that contribute to knowledge about which models and interventions with K-12 students and teachers are most likely to increase capacity in the STEM and STEM cognate intensive workforce of the future.

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SciGirls Strategies: Gender Equitable Teaching Practices in Career and Technical Education Pathways for High School Girls

2015 - 2021

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by engaging in hands-on field experience, laboratory/project-based entrepreneurship tasks and mentorship experiences. 

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Innovative Technology-Enabled Astronomy for Middle Schools II (ITEAMS II)

2014 - 2019

Nationwide, middle-school youth from underrepresented communities have few opportunities to engage in authentic STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) investigations that build on the students' intrinsic interests in space science and robotics to increase their interests in both ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and STEM careers. ITEAMS II is a collaborative project of science educators and researchers at the Harvard College Observatory and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

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GIS/T Resources and Applications for Career Education (GRACE)

2014 - 2018

The GIS Resources and Applications for Career Education (GRACE) project builds upon a recent NSF-funded project, the Mayors Youth Technology Corps (MYTC), that developed a model of geographic information systems and technology (GIS/T) based education. MYTC developed a model of purposeful applications of GIS/T-based education for STEM careers in the workplace that provided youth in economically disadvantaged communities experience using and applying GIS/T to real world situations.

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The CryptoClub: Extending Learning with Student-Generated Tutorials

2013 - 2019

In existing CryptoClub after school programs, middle school students use mathematics to make and break secret codes. The CryptoClub website has tools for encrypting, messages to crack, treasure hunts and other activities. In this project, the learning in fifteen Crypto Clubs is extended by having the students generate tutorials that explain how they solve mathematics and cryptographic problems. The flexibility of the after school setting provides the opportunity to experiment with content and technology.

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