This Learning and Research Center 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 providing technical support to all ITEST projects, facilitating national dissemination of ITEST project outcomes, and further developing the ITEST research and development community.

Robotics and GPS/GIS in 4-H: Workforce Skills for the 21st Century is a-five year scale-up project to use 4-H clubs to prepare middle school youth for the STEM workplace. The project builds on and extends an existing research-based ITEST project by developing and testing new national curricula to introduce basic technology skills, foster problem solving and inquiry skills, and encourage teamwork.

This project will enable high school and middle school STEM teachers and students to conduct environmental research aided by the analysis of images from digital cameras, scanners, and the Internet. The project explores how digital image analysis can be applied to environmental quality issues that can readily be introduced into STEM courses, engaging students and encouraging them to think about related careers. The project will develop research agendas that will employ a variety of image analysis tools.

The Barcode of Life Initiative (BOLI) is an international biodiversity collaboration that creates a genetic encyclopedia of Earth's plants and animals using short DNA sequences that uniquely identify species groups. The goal of this strategies project is to interest students in STEM careers by engaging them in an international project to provide identification of biological species.

This project combines efforts of the EDUCATION CONNECTION Center for 21st Century Skills with the Education Development Center (its research partner), and K-12 school districts to develop, implement, study, and evaluate an innovative STEM career academy model. A consortium of state colleges and universities (as well as other entities) helps to fully integrate cyberlearning and content courses in STEM with digital arts and media.

The University of Hartford serves 352 economically disadvantaged and underserved middle and high school youth in Hartford, CT. The project will enable participants to gain IT skills in computer engineering and web applications. Partners include the University of Hartford Career Counseling Center, Computers for Communities, and Hartford Public Schools.