What's New

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 Virtual Hall of Science has the potential to extend those lessons well beyond the New York Hall of Science’s brick-and-mortar walls and reach students all over the world. Built by NYC middle and high schoolers over the course of two years, this ITEST project not only provides interactive installations to the general public, but also cultivated the teamwork, illustration, and programming skills of its builders.

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

At the five-day Energy for ME Summer Institute students and teachers from six middle schools are gaining skills by working with Maine Energy Education Program (MEEP) instructors data literacy skills, geographic information system (GIS) and ethnography educators. The skills they learn from this ITEST project will help them develop projects in their communities to lower energy costs. Progress will be monitored by analyzing electricity usage in four

ITEST PI Tirupalavanam Ganesh has partnered with Kyrene Aprende Middle School to advance his educational outreach program, ITEST project Learning through Engineering Design and Practice, and enhance students' learning through STEM education by using real-world, hands-on experiences. Using inquiry-based methods, Ganesh's curriculum will expand to two other after school programs and also is used during school at a fourth middle school.

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

RI Gov. Carcieri announced a $1.2-million grant from the National Science Foundation that will train 100 high school science teachers to use computer simulations as tools in the classroom, advancing the governor’s “Physics First” initiative. The molecular modeling software used as part of the RI-ITEST professional development requirements will be used to implement the new curriculum.

Led by UM Paleontology Center Director George Stanley, UM geologist and sediment specialist Marc Hendrix, and other university researchers, student-teacher teams from across Eastern Montana found, unearthed, photographed and recorded their discoveries as part of the Paleo Exploration Project, an ITEST project based out of the University of Montana.

Northeastern Montana middle schoolers have just completed a unique camp that ties the allure of finding dinosaurs to the magic of technology. Guided by teachers who were a part of the ITEST Paleo Exploration Project, young people discovered a triceratops frill, the rib and tooth of a Tyrannosaurus rex, what is possibly a new flowering plant for the Cretaceous period, and the scientific method over the course of two one-week summer camps.

30 middle school teachers from 20 Eastern Montana schools are participants in the ITEST Paleo Exploration Project, created in partnership between the University of Montana and Fort Peck Paleontology. As part of this project, teachers go through several 2-day intensive trainings on using GPS units and GIS software; over summer, they will bring students to one of two summer institutes where they will do real, scientific work on fossil material that