As part of ITEST project Reach for the Sky, teams of 4th through 8th grade students are to launch eight spacecraft to the edge of outer space (“near-space" — the upper reaches of the atmosphere, above 80,000 feet). In about 30 experiments, the students will test science theories and apply hands-on science and math to their world.

Watsonville High School freshmen Idzel Cano, 14, and Brianna Flores, 14, are among 25 talented Bay Area girls who will be honored by the National Center for Women and Information with an award for aspirations in computing Sunday at the Computer History Museum in San Jose. Cano and Flores learned game design while middle-schoolers through the Girl Game Company, an after-school ITEST project sponsored by Scotts Valley-based ETR Associates in

This year’s Harlem Children Society students – some from families torn apart by incarceration, others first generation immigrants from countries as far flung as Ghana and Guyana, and all promising students who qualify for free lunch – will meet their mentors, who are reknowned scientists at leading research institutions, for the first time at an induction ceremony at NYU’s Kimmel Center. The students will celebrate their accomplishments in two

Expanding the minds of teenagers, and their career options, is the goal of the Harlem Children Society. The non-profit places low-income high school students in real working labs all over the city and gives them stipends. It was founded 10 years ago by Dr. Sat Bhattacharya, a molecular geneticist and cancer researcher who works at Sloan Kettering and Rockefeller University. By offering internships with pretigious science and medical labls, Dr

Developed in 2007, COMPUGIRLS is an ITEST project that serves 60 girls in underserved school districts in the Phoenix-metro area. The girls, who are predominantly Hispanic, Native American and African-American, can begin the program as eighth graders and participate in six distinct courses, meeting four times a week for five weeks. In addition to advancing techno-social skills, they learn to improve their writing, conduct interviews, draft

ITEST project Reach for the Sky brings innovative curricula and activities in STEM disciplines to the White Earth students over a five-week span. This program is particularly beneficial because it makes STEM culturally relevant to local Anishinaabe youth.

SRI International, Girls Incorporated of Alameda County (Girls Inc.), TERC, andAlameda - Contra Costa Transit District (AC Transit) announced a new, scalable community action project, "Green Riders: Innovative Transportation Systems." This project, which is part of the ITEST InnovaTE3 project, guides girls in developing real-world innovations for their own community and serves as a model for youth development programs that promote youth-led

Launched in 2007 by ETR Associates, a Scotts Valley-based nonprofit focused on health, education and social service issues, Watsonville TEC (also known as ITEST project Animando a Estudiantes con Technologia) has grown from a small program serving middle school girls (known as the ITEST Girl Game Company) to include video game programming classes for middle school boys, separate computer skills tutorials for fifth graders and for parents, and

The under-representation of Latinos in fields like computer science and engineering troubled Watsonville TEC director Jacob Martinez and led him into a career where he teaches technology to students as early as the fifth grade. Watsonville TEC (also known as ITEST project Animando a Estudiantes con Technologia) is an after school program that will be in 14 Watsonville elementary and middle schools this year.For his efforts, Martinez will be

Watsonville High junior Stephanie Barraza won a national award for Aspirations in Computing from the National Center for Women and Information Technology in December. Barraza was one of 35 young women selected for the honor from more than 1,110 applicants, and she is just the next in a long line of Watsonville TEC graduates to garner accolades. Watsonville schools are quietly becoming a stronghold of young computer programmers, thanks to a small