Technically Speaking: Why All Americans Need to Know More About Technology

Publication

Technically Speaking provides a blueprint for bringing us all up to speed on the role of technology in our society, including understanding such distinctions as technology versus science and technological literacy versus technical competence. It clearly and decisively explains what it means to be a technologically-literate citizen. The book goes on to explore the context of technological literacy the social, historical, political, and educational environments.

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Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE)

Publication

DLESE's mission is to improve the quality, quantity, and efficiency of teaching and learning about the Earth System, by developing, managing, and providing access to high-quality educational resources and supporting services through a community-based, distributed digital library. Intended users include students, educators and citizens of all ages, in both formal and informal learning environments. The collection favors resources that convey linkages and connections; the general with the specific, theory with evidence, global with local, and that demonstrate the application of science to

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National Science Digital Library (NSDL)

Publication

NSDL is a digital library of exemplary resource collections and services, organized in support of science education at all levels. Starting with a partnership of NSDL-funded projects, NSDL is emerging as a center of innovation in digital libraries as applied to education, and a community center for groups focused on digital-library-enabled science education. Mission: NSDL provides educational resources for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. The NSDL mission is to both deepen and extend science literacy through access to materials and methods that reveal the nature of

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Examining 4-H Robotics and Geospatial Technologies in the Learning of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Topics

Publication

The study reported here investigated the use of educational robotics, paired with GPS and GIS geospatial technologies, as a context for learning selected concepts in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics within a 4-H camp setting. The study involved 38 students between the ages of 11 to 15. A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was used in the study, with a 29-question multiple-choice instrument targeting various academic topics. The results of the study suggest that the 4-H robotics and geospatial summer camp program is a promising approach for supporting STEM-related

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Congratulations to Sarita Saju: student in ITEST-Nano program wins science award 

News

Sarita Saju, student from George Washington High School involved in the ITEST-Nano program (also known as Nanotechnology and Bioengineering in Philadelphia Public Schools), recently received top awards at science fairs for her nanotechnology project, titled "Polymer-Wrapped Carbon Nanotubes as Electrode Materials for Supercapacitors." Her project was based on work during her internship with expert scientists from the School of Engineering and

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Head of the class

News

ITEST project Reach for the Sky is doing more than connecting students to STEM—it has facilitated partnerships between three University colleges, University Extension, the White Earth Tribal College, three Reservation schools, and two businesses. This article highlights Reach for the Sky's program features.

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High-school scientists decode DNA sequence, present findings

News

HiGene, an ITEST project, brings to New Jersey high school students the chance to work in a rapidly advancing field, do original research, then publish their results and share them with the scientific community. Drawing on the fields of molecular biology and bioinformatics, five students from this project presented their most recent findings to an audience of scientists at the NSF headquarters in Arlington, VA.

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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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Front-Loaded Confidence: The Efficacy of Hybrid Professional Development in an ITEST Geospatial Technologies Project

Publication

This virtual brief paper describes the efficacy of hybrid professional development used for the CoastLines Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) project. Over a three-year period, CoastLines introduced middle and high school teachers to the use of geospatial technologies as a tool for science instruction. Its hybrid professional development format included 40 hours of Webinars and an 80-hour summer institute. In response to formative feedback, the format was revised each year throughout the course of the project. Ninety teachers were trained using the hybrid

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Build IT: Building Middle and High School Students’ Understanding of Engineering, Science and IT through Underwater Robotics

Publication

Designing and building robots to perform a series of increasingly complex tasks in an underwater environment is the vehicle to engage, interest, and cultivate 36 middle and high schools inlearning engineering, science and information technology. Using LEGO components and a hands-on, team-based, iterative design process, teachers and students learn how to build robotsthat must operate underwater in a three dimensional space. In building their robot to perform these tasks (proceed in straight line path across a pool, negotiate a slalom course, ascend/descendin a water column, and grab/deposit a

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