SRI International, TERC and Girls Inc. partner with AC Transit to inspire high school girls to create greener public transportation solutions

News

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

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Growing, from berries to tech

News

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

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TEC program director applauded

News

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

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'Savvy' tech students coming from Watsonville schools

News

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

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Teen girls discover digital technology as ‘COMPUGIRLS’

News

Dr. Kimberly Scott is the principal investigator and creator of a National Science Foundation-funded ITEST project COMPUGIRLS, an innovative technology program designed to teach girls of color how to use technology to bring about social change. She was concerned with the low participation of young women from higher needs school districts in STEM, so Scott developed COMPUGIRLS from a program she initiated at Hofstra University in New York.

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Computer scientists bring digital world to Bronx kids

News

Jonathan Santiago, co-founder and managing director of STEM2GETHER, describes his experience working with ITEST project GreenFab and teaching advanced technical concepts to students in the Bronx.This article was also published on Live Science.

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More than Title IX: How Equity in Education has Shaped the Nation

Publication

This book, co-authored by Sarita Pillai, Co-PI of the ITEST Learning Resource Center, highlights the impact of one of the most powerful instruments of change—education. The book blends historical analysis and dynamic interviews with people who made a difference— as policy moved beyond the classroom into homes, workplaces, and our very culture. By showing how hard-won changes in education have improved life in America, we hope to inspire and challenge others to craft their own vision of equity and justice and invent new ways to address barriers that persist across gender, race, and class—to

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Changing the High School Culture to Promote Interest in IT Careers

Publication

Interviews with high achieving middle school girls enrolled in a math and technology summer program showed that one fourth of the girls were interested in careers in IT. The girls were interviewed four years later when they were in high school. We found that all of them were still interested in math and most of them were taking, or had taken, advanced math courses. However, only several were taking or had taken a computer science course and only one girl expressed interest in pursuing a career in IT. They showed a general lack of information about computer science, computer scientists and

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Freedom Machines

Curricular Materials

The Freedom Machines film, discussion guide, lesson plan, and resource guides are designed to dramatically broaden the concept of diversity for all students through telling the intimate stories of adults and children with disabilities who are using modern technologies to change their lives.

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