Bits-2-Bites is a strategies project that will engage middle school and high school students in learning to apply computational thinking and computer based tools to address STEM related community issues. Participants will learn about the biology and chemistry of food science, nutrition, food production, environmental sustainability, and how they relate to relevant community health issues such as the proliferation of obesity and diabetes.

The Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center at the Monterey Community College in collaboration with Washington State University is engaging in a scale-up study of the remote operated vehicle (ROV) program to new audiences of middle and high school students and teachers. Using a train the trainers approach, the MATE ROV project is conducting at least 45 regional professional development workshops in 15 regions for a total of 500 teachers.

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 Science Museum of Minnesota’s youth-based ITEST program engages inner city teens in creating a learning community for STEM education through creative technology projects led by adult professionals in sciences and the arts.

The youth-based ITEST proposal, Invention, Design, Engineering and Art Cooperative (IDEA), provides 100 students in grades 8-12 from the East Side of St. Paul, Minnesota with IT experiences in engineering and design.

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.

National Middle School Aerospace Scholars (NaMAS) will provide both teachers and students in eight states the opportunity to learn about and experience information technologies and how they are used within the context of STEM applications in the exciting high technology aerospace industry. NaMAS will include teacher-training workshops, live-link events from NASA-Johnson Space Center, and a robot building student event.

This proposal addresses the need to make science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, and information technology (IT) more culturally relevant for Anishinabe youths on the White Earth Reservation (WER). The objectives of the project are to improve youths’ skills, knowledge, and interests in STEM and IT fields. Teachers and staffs from targeted schools, professors from tribal colleges and local universities, community elders, and out-of-school staffs will participate in the project’s activities.